Once is Happenstance
by Aurilia
Summary: Harry Potter xover. Harry joins Sam and Dean on a hunt. Rated 'M' for language. Not slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** As you may have caught from the disclaimer, this is a Harry Potter/Supernatural crossover. You don't really need to be familiar with both, but it will help understand some of the references in the story if you know at least one or the other, and since I'm posting this under the Supernatural fandom, more of the Harry Potter back-story is explained than that of the Winchester brothers. This takes place after season two of Supernatural and goes AU for Harry Potter after Order of the Phoenix. I hope it's up to snuff. As to 'All at Once', I'll have the next chapter for that one out after this is finished – the plot bunny for this is taking up all my time right now, but never fear! I _will_ finish AaO, I promise.

* * *

**Once is Happenstance**

_10:30 pm, July 19, 2007  
Room 13, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

"Thank Merlin for shrinking charms," Harry muttered, setting his saddlebag and helmet on the motel's dresser-slash-television stand. It contained far, far more than its outward appearance would suggest. It took him a moment of rummaging around to locate the items he wanted, a miniature duffle bag and a gold-and-black backpack that looked as though they belonged in a little girl's Barbie collection. Retrieving his wand from the holster strapped to his left forearm, he resized the two bags. His attention fixed on the duffle first, digging out some clean clothes. This time, it was socks, underwear, a plain black t-shirt, and a pair of faded blue jeans.

He draped his leather jacket over the rickety motel chair that sat at an angle in the corner before kicking off his boots. He looked at his pile of clean clothing and then at the backpack and shrugged, "Fuck it. Information can wait – I want a shower."

Grabbing his bathroom kit from the outside zipper pocket on the duffle and his pile of clean clothes, Harry disappeared into the bathroom. As scalding-hot water sluiced through his hair and beat down on his shoulders, he sighed and leaned against the tile wall. _I hope this one runs smoother than the last one. How the hell did Lucius find me in Podunk, Arizona? And how the _fuck_ did he duck that AK? Must be getting rusty in my old age,_ his thoughts were decidedly sarcastic. _Doesn't matter much – I'll get him next time he shows his poncy head. At least he didn't show up until after that damn murderous ghost was properly banished._ Using the complementary motel shampoo-plus-conditioner, he lathered up his hair. _Now, enough with the memories, Potter. What did the website say about the next job? Three disappearances in two weeks… The disappearances aren't linked to the lunar cycle, so it isn't a werewolf. It's in town, so it can't be a wendigo. Hell, there are only a dozen or so creatures that hunt in towns… I don't think it's a skin-thief. Skin-thieves prefer larger cities. Hmm… Gonna hafta look more into this, I suppose._

Harry hurriedly finished up his shower and pulled on his clean clothes. He ran a comb through his wet hair, knowing the attempt to tame it was so far beyond the realm of possibility that it bordered on the absurd. He took his time shaving, choosing to do so the muggle way, with a disposable razor and a liberal amount of Colgate shaving gel. He didn't bother with aftershave – he wasn't out to impress anybody, and the smell of most aftershaves got on his nerves. When he was done, he pulled the stopper from the drain and sighed. "Down the drain – yeah, that's pretty accurate. Story of my life, down the fucking drain."

Ignoring his reflection, Harry packed up his kit and gathered his dirty clothes. The clothes were treated to a cleaning charm before the sweatshirt and khakis were rolled back up and returned to the duffle. The kit he left on the dresser, between his saddlebag and helmet. He grabbed the backpack and pulled out his laptop – a gift from his only remaining friend, Leanne MacRucky, who had assured him that the custom computer would have no adverse reactions to magic in its vicinity. Harry still wasn't sure how it worked, but he didn't particularly care. It connected to the internet and ran his distractions without needing charging, so who was he to complain? While waiting for the computer to boot up, he snagged the glass ashtray off the dresser and moved it to the bedside table, dug a miniaturized bag of groceries out of his saddlebag, and moved his wand, wallet, and cigarette case to within easy reach.

Stretching out on the motel bed, Harry resized the bag of groceries and dug out his meal of choice: a 24-oz. can of Monster and a ham-and-American Lunchable. Pulling up the website for the local paper, Harry absently munched his supper and set to rereading the articles that brought him to Knoxville.

* * *

_11:45 pm, July 19, 2007  
Room 14, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

Dean stretched his neck a little and glanced up from the EMF. It had collided – rather hard – with a brick wall on the last hunt, and definitely needed some work. After snagging a room, Sam had headed out in search of provisions – they were low on salt and lighter fluid. Luckily, their previous research of the town indicated that there was a Wal-Mart as well as a hospital right inside city limits. With the town only being roughly eight thousand people, Dean figured Sam would be back in a little over an hour. Hopefully less; he really didn't like having his brother out of his sight. After confirming that Sam had only been gone half an hour, Dean went back to repairing the EMF.

Changing out a couple of fried wires and two broken light bulbs, Dean inserted a new pair of batteries and flicked it on, just to make sure the damn thing was working properly. He wasn't prepared for it to light up as high as it did – the indicator lights were half-lit. Growling a little, he sprung to his feet and double-checked that the salt lines in front of the door and window were unbroken. They were.

_Just our luck to pick the haunted motel in this two-horse town! _Dean hurried over to where the duffle that housed the brothers' shotguns sat and retrieved one of them and a handful of shells. The EMF's lights grew a little brighter and another two indicators lit up as he came close to the wall their room shared with number thirteen. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. _At least it's not this room_, he thought, striding over to the window. He pulled the drape aside and looked out at the dimly lit parking lot, trying to figure out if there was anyone staying in room thirteen. There was a battered, old Winnebago in the spot furthest from the office, a '97 Corvette a couple of slots down from the RV, and a '77 Harley in the spot next to the handicapped place next to the office, right under the lot's one and only light. There was no way to tell if any of the vehicles in the lot had owners currently residing in room thirteen.

Shrugging a little, Dean tucked the shells for the shotgun into his jeans pocket and retrieved his lock pick from his jacket. Carrying the EMF and the lock pick in one hand and the shotgun in the other, he made sure the room key was in his other pocket and slipped into the damp night air. The curtains for room thirteen were drawn, but so were the curtains for all the other rooms – Dean couldn't tell if anyone was in there or not. Silently thanking small-town inertia for still using real keys, Dean quickly had the lock to room thirteen picked.

* * *

_11:55 pm, July 19, 2007  
Room 13, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

The computer was still on, sitting on one half of the double bed, while Harry snoozed on the other half, an empty Lunchable box sitting between the two. The nearly inaudible click of the lock had Harry's eyes snapping open. Reacting purely on instinct, he grabbed his wand and rolled off the bed, using it as cover and a convenient hiding place until he could figure out who was entering his room.

Peering from around the end of the bed, he watched as the door slowly opened and a tall man, carrying a shotgun and what looked like a walkman, stepped in. Harry sprang to his feet, not about to let himself be easy prey, and shouted, "Stupefy!"

Dean, who had immediately recognized the fact that this was an occupied – though very dark – room, had a split second to notice a shadow spring up from behind the bed and wonder, _Isn't that a song by Disturbed?_ before a red jet of light hit him squarely in his chest and unconsciousness claimed him.

Harry flicked on the lights and closed the motel room door before looking over the man who had so rudely interrupted his nap. He was happy, for the umpteenth time, that he'd given in and had his eyes fixed; though he'd done it at a muggle lasik clinic and not through a mediwitch. The man on his floor was a good half-foot taller than he was, if not slightly more so, and looked to be in good shape. "If I wasn't me, I don't think I'd want to meet him down a dark alley," he muttered to himself as he mobilicorpused the unconscious man into the motel chair. He applied the strongest sticking charms he knew to the man, ensuring that he wouldn't be going anywhere.

With the man off the floor, Harry gathered the shotgun, lock pick, and freaky-looking walkman from where they had landed and sat them on the bed. The walkman's row of lights lit up fully and the thing emitted a high-pitched noise akin to a dog whistle. Grimacing, Harry fiddled with the gadget and found the off switch. In the silence, Harry turned his attention back to the man. "Let's see just who you are, shall we?"

The first thing Harry did was check the man's arm for the Dark Mark. "Well, that doesn't always mean much," he muttered, recalling numerous run-ins over the years with Death Eater sympathizers and hired bounty hunters. Working through a gap in the back of the chair, Harry retrieved the man's wallet. "Hmm… What the hell?" There were no fewer than four IDs and more than a dozen credit cards, no two of which had the same name. "Phil Rudd, James Hetfield, John Bonham, Noah Beery, Kene Holliday, Neil Peart… Okay, whoever the fuck you are, you're about to figure out why breaking into my motel room is a _bad_ plan."

Harry dug into a side compartment on his saddlebag and retrieved a wooden box roughly the same size as a matchbox. He resized it to its normal dimensions – about sixteen inches long, twelve inches deep, and ten or so wide – and opened it. It contained dozens of vials of various potions. "Blood-replenishing, dreamless sleep, burn salve, ah, here we are!" He grabbed the small bottle of clear potion and spun off the eyedropper top. Opening the intruder's mouth, he counted out three drops as they hit the man's tongue. Putting away the vial, he aimed his wand at the man and ennervated him.

Dean's eyes opened and he shook his head a little. His head felt fuzzy and his mouth felt like he'd been sucking on cotton. He tried to figure out what was going on, but his brain felt like it was a half-step behind reality.

Harry didn't allow the intruder time to orient himself; he knew that if the man was versed in occlumency, he only had two or three questions' time before the veritaserum would be useless. "Who are you?"

Dean's eyes flickered up from where they had been inspecting the beige carpet of the motel room and answered. "Dean Winchester." He blinked and shook his head again, _What the hell…?_

"Why did you break into my room?" Harry immediately snapped out the next question on his assess-the-threat list.

"My EMF indicated that there was a supernatural presence in the room, so I was going to investigate it." Dean's brain caught up just as he finished answering the question, _Why am I telling this schlub the truth?_

Of all the possible answers, Harry had least suspected that one. He paused, blinked a couple of times, and laughed. _Of all the people after me, the one I catch breaking into my room in the middle of nowhere ends up being a Hunter. _Harry retrieved the antidote to the veritaserum from his potions kit. "Want to stop having to tell me the truth with every question I ask?"

"Yes," again Dean's mind was a half-step behind and all he could do was mentally kick himself.

"Then open your mouth," Harry unstoppered the vial and measured out the correct dose. "This may taste like shit, but it'll get the job done."

Dean's mouth was halfway open when his brain caught up. He pressed his lips together. The man standing in front of him sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, "Look, if I wanted to poison you, I would have done it while you were out cold. See?" He lifted the eyedropper to his own mouth and squeezed out a drop of the bitter, foul-tasting liquid. He swallowed and shuddered melodramatically, "Damn, that's nasty."

Seeing that the taste seemed to be the only thing wrong with the liquid, Dean figured it wouldn't hurt, and opened his mouth. Harry administered the antidote and returned the vial to the kit. Giving the Hunter a moment for the new potion to counter the effects of the old, Harry closed his potions box, shrunk it, and put it back in his saddlebag. "What the _fuck_?" Dean's voice indicated that he'd either seen Harry's shrinking charm in action or noticed that he wasn't physically bound to the chair.

Grabbing his cigarette case, Harry retrieved his lighter from his pocket and lit up. "If I let you go and agree to answer your questions, will you promise not to hit me?" he asked with a wry grin.

"I don't promise anything," Dean replied.

Harry shrugged, "Fair enough." He aimed his wand at Dean and muttered, "Finite incantatem."

Dean suddenly found that he could now remove his arms and legs from where they'd been held in place against the cheap wood of the motel chair. He sprung to his feet and came close to shouting, "Who the hell are you?"

Harry took a drag of his cigarette and flicked the ashes absently on the carpet. "Harry Potter."

"_What_ are you?" was Dean's next question.

"That's rather an open-ended question, isn't it?" Harry grinned, "But I'll take pity on you and answer the question you meant to ask. I'm a wizard, British-born, but currently under political asylum here in the states. To pass time – not to mention make it hard for people to find me – I do what I assume you do; I Hunt."

Dean realized that Harry was being completely honest with him – you can't con a con, after all, and no demon he'd ever come across had ever done quite what he'd seen the man in the room do – and sat heavily in the motel chair. "Come again?"

Harry picked up Dean's pick, shotgun, and EMF and handed them to the man. "What, exactly, did you need clarification on?"

Dean didn't know where to start, so he just picked a word and went with it. "Wizard?"

"Ah, I see you've not yet located anything from strictly the magical world. Well, Dean, to be blunt, I'm a wizard – I have the ability to control and direct magic to do what I want it to. Even though you're not a true wizard, you _are _a Hunter, right?" Dean nodded. "This means that you're somewhere between a true muggle – those happily ignorant people who live in little white houses with picket fences and think that demons and ghosts are nothing more than fairytales – and a true wizard. I would imagine you're something akin to a squib, but that's not really the point. What I'm trying to say is that there are laws that say I can't reveal my magic to a muggle, but that law doesn't apply to family members, people who deal with the supernatural on a day-to-day basis, or in a life-or-death situation. Since you're a Hunter, you deal with ghosts, ghoulies, and wee little beasties pretty regular, right?" Dean nodded again. "Hence, I can tell you about my magic ability and not get in trouble with the law. With me so far?"

"I think so," Dean said.

Harry smirked, "You know, you're taking this a bit better than the last Hunter I ran into."

"Well," Dean shrugged, "if I do what I do and _don't_ believe in magic, I doubt that I would have lived very long in this business. Most of the protections and protocols we use are thought of as 'magical' by the general public, after all." He grinned and shrugged again, "Besides, I'm not the sort to disbelieve what I see."

"Spot-on!" Harry punctuated his reply with a jab of his cigarette, _At least he's not a blockhead like so many of the Hunter ilk can be_. "Next question."

Dean scrubbed a hand across his face. _This has to be the single weirdest conversation I've ever had._ "Political asylum?"

Harry sighed and sat down, "What, you wouldn't rather know my favorite pizza toppings? My drink of choice? Straight into the hard stuff, huh?"

Dean chuckled a little at Harry's somewhat whiney tone. Now that he was in full control of his brain, he couldn't help but admire how quickly the man had responded to his intrusion, and how he'd handled the situation by asking questions first – Dean couldn't help but think that Harry and his brother were cut from the same cloth. "Nope," he countered, "I could've asked the _really_ hard questions, like when's the last time you got laid."

Rather than responding to the humor as Dean had intended, Harry winced a little. "Point taken," he stated, grinding his cigarette out in the ashtray on the night stand. "Simply put, if I return to the UK, I run the risk of spending the rest of my life in prison – definitely _not_ something on my to-do list."

Dean laughed; he was really starting to like this guy. "Though I can appreciate the sentiment about prison – really, dude, I ain't shitting you on that score – why'd you have to leave home, so-to-speak?"

Harry sighed, "It's rather a long story."

"I got nothing but time," Dean made a 'go on' motion with his hands.

Harry clicked open his silver cigarette case, immediately snapping it shut again when he saw there were only five fags left. He scrubbed a hand across his face and began, "I suppose the easiest place to begin this is by starting long before I was born. In the 1920s girl by the name of Merope Gaunt fell in love with a man she shouldn't have – not normally a world-changing event, I know, but Merope was a witch. She was also from a not-so-nice family that was distinctly lacking in the money department. The man she fell for was the only son of the local muggle lord. She used magic to bespell the man into thinking he was in love with her and they eloped."

"And how does this explain why you're hiding out in the US?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "I'm getting to that! Honestly, I tried to warn you that this was a long story. Anyway, no one is quite sure what happened, but after a while the spell on the muggle wore off or was broken – he returned home, abandoning Merope. Merope was pregnant, of course, and had her son at a muggle orphanage, living just long enough to name him…" Harry trailed off, lost in the memory of the summer following his fifth year, when he finally got a hold of his temper long enough to sit down and demand an explanation from Dumbledore.

"And…?" Dean prompted, despite himself, he was caught up in the story – something that hadn't really happened since his dad had stopped telling him and Sam bedtime stories more than two decades ago.

Harry shook himself a little, dragging himself back to the present. "And the kid grew up in a muggle orphanage, in London. He had inherited his mother's magical gift, but… I don't know… Something about him was twisted. He liked hurting other kids, and learned how to use his magic to hurt them at a rather early age. In an attempt to cut a long story short, I'll skip ahead to early in the year of 1980. A witch by the name of Sybil Trelawney – and if you knew more of the magical world, the name would actually mean something to you – made a prophecy. By this time, the boy who'd grown up in the muggle orphanage had become very dark indeed. Though he was personally after immortality and world-domination, he used propaganda to recruit supporters, playing on the wizarding world's inherent fear of the muggle world –"

Dean held up his hand, "Hold up, 'the wizarding world's inherent fear of the muggle world'? I would think it would be the other way around, if your little demonstration from earlier is any indication of the type of power you have at your command."

Harry quirked an eyebrow, "Really? How about the Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch Trials? Separate most witches and wizards from their wands and they're worse off than a muggle. Most witches and wizards aren't raised to realize that magic isn't the answer to everything – I can count on one hand the number of wizards I know from back home who can fight hand-to-hand."

"Okay," Dean said, "you've made your point. You were saying about a prophecy and this evil dude?"

Harry smiled a little wanly at Dean's description of Voldemort as 'this evil dude'. "Well, like I was saying, he played on the wizarding world's fear of the muggle world, and massed a lot of supporters. He didn't quite have the political pull to get things changed, though, so he and his followers began eliminating anyone who stood in their way."

"By 'eliminate' you mean 'kill'." It wasn't a question.

Harry nodded, "Yeah. Kill, torture… His followers didn't realize it at first, but he was collecting power from these acts of violence."

"I know a couple of demons who do the same thing," Dean supplied, indicating that he understood the gist, if not the actuality, of what Harry was saying. "What about that prophecy?"

Harry rolled his shoulders a little, wincing as something between his shoulder blades popped with a loud crack, and stood. He paced as he continued his tale. "It foretold the birth of the one person capable of stopping the Dark Lord," though Harry had never really realized it before, but he'd not spoken aloud Voldemort's name since killing the man ten years earlier.

"Let me guess," Dean said with a half-grin, "_you_."

Harry nodded, "Sort of. What it actually boiled down to was that it could have been either me or another kid who was born the day before me. But, the Dark Lord came after me first, so me it became."

Dean shook his head, "Huh?"

"It has to do with the wording of the prophecy," Harry indicated the long-faded lightning bolt scar over his left eyebrow. "Since he marked me as his equal, I was the one who could destroy him."

"Doesn't look like much," was Dean's honest opinion. After all, he'd been shot, stabbed, electrocuted, and so on. A simple cut on the head was _nothing_.

"It's a curse scar. When I was a baby – the Halloween after my first birthday, actually – the Dark Lord killed my parents and tried to kill me, too. The curse he used… It's called the killing curse. It has no counter, no block, no shield. That curse hit me, though, and rebounded. Left me with this scar, but didn't kill me."

For the first time since releasing Dean from the effects of the veritaserum, Harry could see skepticism on his guest's face. A demonstration was called for. "Accio cockroach," he incanted. Dean's puzzled expression disappeared when a large roach flew out from under the bed and landed in Harry's open palm. Dean couldn't help himself – he shuddered. Harry picked up his wand from the bed and shook the roach onto the floor. Dean leaned forward to get a better look. The roach was nearly two inches long and squirming, trying to right itself. He had to restrain himself from getting up and stomping on the bug. Harry aimed his wand at the squirming insect, "Avada kedavra."

The rush of green light made the hair on the back of Dean's neck stand up. The cockroach wasn't moving any more. "That…"

Harry nodded, tossing his wand back onto the bed, "Was the killing curse."

"So how'd you survive it?"

"Old magic… My mother died in order to save me; it created a lingering protection that kept me safe for a long, long time." Harry stopped for a moment and picked up the Monster can that sat on the bedside table. He drained the remains in one go and tossed the empty can in a wastebasket. "In any case, the rebounding curse sent the Dark Lord into a state of… Not quite dead. He was no longer corporeal, but he hadn't died. He fled and the wizarding world rejoiced for ten years, thinking he was gone for good. He wasn't, though, and began making attempts to return the same year I started going to magic school. From that point on, he tried to kill me just about once per year – excepting when I was thirteen, and I think he was too side-tracked trying to get his followers together again and planning for what happened the following year – until he killed the wrong people."

"Who did he kill?"

Though it had been ten years or more since it had happened, Harry still felt the losses he'd suffered quite keenly. "At the end of my fifth year, he killed my godfather. Technically, _he_ didn't kill Sirius, but he _was_ responsible. Sirius' death hit me pretty hard, but it made me sit back and _think_, too. After a couple of weeks of shock and grief, I got my arse in gear and started studying, training to take down the bastard. It took no little amount of effort on my part to get people to help me, but eventually, I got the trainers and tutors I needed. I finished up my last two years of school by the end of October of what would have been my sixth year. After that, though I still stayed at the school – oh, I didn't mention it, but my magic school was a boarding school – I had advanced courses in whatever I could think of that would help." Harry snagged his cigarette case again and opened it. He was so caught up in his own memories of the intensive training sessions and other events of the time that he didn't notice he'd lit the cigarette with a bit of wandless magic, but Dean did. _I can't help but wish I could do that. Would save the hassle of carrying around matches for salt-and-burns._

After he'd smoked half the cigarette, Harry sighed. "In January of '97, one of his followers killed my best mate, Ron, and cursed my girlfriend into insanity. My only other really close friend apparently blamed me for what happened, and it was the last straw. I figured enough was enough; I wasn't going to put up with that shite any more. I made a target of myself and allowed the Dark Lord's followers to take me right to him. At the time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to kill him or let him win – the government and press had done their best over the preceding years to paint me as an attention-seeking glory-hound while covering up any indication that the bad guy hadn't been defeated permanently when I was a baby – I was in bad shape."

"Obviously, since I'm sitting here talking with you, you won."

"Yeah… Though it was a near thing. To be honest, I still don't remember much about that last encounter… Smoke and screaming, mostly. I do recall that I didn't kill the bastard with magic, though. I broke his fucking neck with my bare hands…"

"Sounds like you did the world a favor."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Harry scoffed, "I fulfilled my prophesized duty and saved the world. You'd think I would have gotten at least a 'thanks', but that didn't happen. Despite the fact that he was the darkest wizard in a century; despite the fact that I was, essentially, Fate's busboy; despite the fact that I'd saved the world from a slow death, the government – a more corrupt bunch of inept fools you'll never find – decreed that I had to be held accountable for my actions. The press ate it up and painted me as the next Dark Lord. I was to be tried for murder. I caught wind of this through an old friend of my parents only three days or so after the final battle.

"I disappeared to France, hoping that my few remaining allies would be able to clear things up for me. That didn't happen – my strongest support had an 'accident'. Though they tried to pin the death on me, it couldn't stick. There had been too many witnesses to what had really happened. It took a couple of weeks to figure out that though I had killed off the main bad guy, the mass of supporters he'd had had taken control of the Ministry. Therefore, if I go home, I'll go to prison… if they didn't execute me." Harry ground out the cigarette and sighed. "I managed to win the battle, but I lost the war."

Dean let out a low whistle, "Damn… And I thought _my_ life was rough… Why the US, though? If it'd been me, I'd've picked Rio… Maybe the Bahamas."

Harry shrugged, "I was once told that the best place to lose yourself is the US. Between the size of the population and the sheer massiveness of the country, there are a _lot_ of places to hide. After finding out that I had a price on my head, I figured it couldn't hurt to keep my options open."

"So, how'd you get into Hunting?" Dean asked, thinking _This story is way too complicated to not be true. The best lies are always the simple ones, and this story is anything but simple._

"Well, I arrived in New York in March of 1997. I contacted my bank and had them transfer all my holdings to their US offices, selling off all my properties when they did so. I spent about six months going through the stuff they transferred over with my money, selling off what I didn't want or couldn't use. I'd just finished up when I was found by a bounty hunter working for the Ministry. It was my first clue that staying in one place was likely to get me killed. The bounty hunter who'd located me was deported, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he – or another just like him – found me, so I sold the flat I'd purchased, snagged my bike, and made a run for it. I traveled constantly, stopping only to sleep or fuel up, from September of '97 until June of '98. I found myself growing rather hungry one day and pulled off to find something to nosh on. That one stop gave my aimless wanderings a purpose."

Dean smirked, there was only one place someone like Harry could have stumbled across Hunters. "Lemme guess, you were in Nebraska, right?"

Harry nodded, "Yep. Just off of Highway 30, outside Odessa."

"Harvelle's Roadhouse."

"Yeah," Harry chuckled. "To say I was a little thrown when I overheard a conversation about hunting werewolves would be a massive understatement." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "What about you? How'd you get into Hunting?"

Dean shrugged a little, "It's sorta the family business. My dad Hunted, and raised me and my brother to do the same."

"Your mum didn't care?"

"Our mom died when I was four," Dean's face lost the friendly expression.

Harry winced, "Sorry, mate."

"It's okay… She's actually why Dad started Hunting."

"How's that?"

"A demon killed her."

"So'd he get the bastard?"

Dean shook his head, "No, he died before he got the chance. But it doesn't matter – I shot that son of a bitch dead just over a month ago."

Harry blinked in surprise, "I thought you couldn't kill a demon – just send them back to the abyssal plane?"

"Abyssal plane?"

"Hell," Harry clarified with a negligent waive of his hand.

"Oh. Well, normally that's the case, but we got a hold of a gun that could kill anything – vampire, demon, it didn't matter. The Colt could make it dead."

"Could?" Harry questioned. "What happened to it? Sounds like a gun like that could come in handy."

"Well, it only worked like that as long as it still had the original bullets. I used the last one to kill the demon that killed my mom. Now, it's just another .45."

Harry nodded in understanding, but the low, throaty rumble of a large engine pulling up just outside interrupted him before he could reply. The engine shut off, and Dean got up and walked to the door. "It's just my brother. I sent him off for provisions," he explained, opening the door. "Sammy! Over here!"

* * *

**A/N2:** The title comes from the quote, "Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance, three times is enemy action." – Ian Fleming (Goldfinger). Yes, this means I'm probably going to expand this into a trilogy, but it may be a while before I finish the next installment (the current tale is finished and will consist of five chapters). I'm caught up in the middle of packing (something I admit I've put off until the last possible moment) for my imminent move to El Paso and I've got aramie.greyson breathing down my neck for neglecting my betaing duties, not to mention another chapter for_All at Once_ to write. 

Reviews are definitely appreciated, but flames are used to roast marshmallows. I'd like to know if I've managed to get Dean's character right - and for Sam!Fans, he'll be appearing in the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** I know I mentioned to one of my reviewers that this wouldn't be posted until tomorrow, but I just got word that today is going to be uber-busy and I've not yet gone to sleep yet and I didn't want to sleep through the chance to update on time so here's the next chapter! Happy reading! And OMFG, I think I've had too much caffeine.

* * *

**Once is Happenstance**

_11:15 pm, July 19, 2007  
Wal-Mart  
Knoxville, Iowa_

If there was one non-demonic thing in this world that Sam Winchester truly hated, it was Wal-Mart. _Strike that, there _has_ to be some sort of demonic evil going on here._ He hated the fluorescent lighting, the harder-than-concrete floors, the fact that he _always_ managed to get a cart with a squeaky wheel… There was no doubt in Sam's mind – Wal-Marts were _evil_. However, he did have to concede that they were slightly less evil late at night. _Must be something to do with the distinct lack of crying children and indecisive old people._ Not that Sam had anything against old people or children – only that they grated on his nerves when he was trying to get supplies.

It took him what felt like forever to gather the supplies on his list. The rock salt had been hidden in a corner of the gardening supply area; regular salt was on the other side of the store, in among the groceries; and for some unfathomable reason, lighter fluid was hidden back in automotive. He was sure that some sort of malevolent supernatural force assessed the shopping list of all the customers and moved things around, just to make sure that the shopper had ample opportunity for impulse-purchases; the fact that the sporting goods department – cunningly located next to the automotive isle where the lighter fluid had hidden – was having a two-for-one sale on shells just the right size for the Winchester's shotguns was proof enough of _that_. That same force also ensured that a shopper randomly remembered needing the oddest items, as evidenced by the package of socks, new toothbrush, packet of pens, and half a dozen other odds and ends in the cart.

By the time he'd finally located the last item on the list, it was already a quarter past midnight. He'd been gone for a full hour. Approaching the front of the store, he groaned. There had to be fifteen people waiting at the only open register, and at least five of them had fully-stocked carts. The woman in front of him actually had enough mounded on her cart to have probably needed two of the damn things. _I'm never getting out of here._ Sam wanted to scream. He was tired, hungry, and wanted a hot shower. There was no helping it, though, he was pretty much stuck.

The woman in front of him looked almost as irritated as he felt. "Why can't they keep the self-check lanes open all night?" he heard her mutter.

"Because that wouldn't be evil enough," he answered.

The woman jumped a little and whirled around. She laughed, though whether at Sam's reply or at her own nervous reaction, Sam didn't know. "Ah, I suppose that in this case, it's a necessary evil." She wasn't very tall, and that wasn't just in comparison to Sam – she was positively _tiny_, barely tall enough to see over the mounded cart. Sam figured she was probably in her thirties, with only a couple of strands of silver marring her long, straight, black hair and the slightest indication of crow's feet wrinkles at the corners of startlingly blue eyes.

"Yeah… I suppose you're right," Sam smiled at her. "I'm Sam."

"Mackenzie," the woman returned the smile and then cocked her head to the side, "Damn… What did they feed you, Miracle-Gro?"

Sam snickered, "Oh, you know… Lucky Charms, Spaghetti-O's, and Happy Meals. The usual."

"I_knew_ my folks were full of shit when they told me that veggies were good for me!" Mackenzie's laugh caused several people ahead of them to turn and stare. "You in town for the races?"

Sam shrugged, "Not really. How'd you know I wasn't a local?"

She pointed to his sweatshirt. Sam glanced down. _Stanford Athletic Department_. "Oh."

"That and I've lived here all my life and haven't seen you before. Just thought I'd warn you about the track, though, if you were here for the sprint-cars."

"What about the track?" Sam asked.

"Well… The races were cancelled this weekend because a couple of kids went missing from the stands last weekend."

"What happened?" Sam knew that there had been a couple of disappearances that defied _normal_ explanation – that was why he and Dean showed up, after all.

"A little girl – she was only six or seven – and her older sister disappeared between the stands and the bathrooms. All the police have been able to find so far has been the older girl's purse."

The line actually moved forward a couple of feet. "What about cameras? Wouldn't the track have CCTV security?"

Mackenzie nodded, "They do, but… It's weird as hell. My husband is on the local police force, and he said that the CCTV at the track shorted out at the same time the girls disappeared."

"Has there been any sort of ransom demand?"

"Nope. That's what has everyone all up in arms about it. The girls were from a rather normal family. Dad's a mechanic, mom's a waitress – so, unless the family's hiding something, which I highly doubt, there wouldn't be much money to finance a ransom."

"Were they from here?" Sam asked, mentally thanking god once again for the ease with which he could get people to talk to him, simply by projecting an aura of concern.

"Not Knoxville, but they were from the area. Small town just south of here by the name of Attica. Didn't know them personally, but my niece is in the same class as the younger girl." Mackenzie sighed, "And all this after that boy disappeared just ten days ago, too… Though, in that case, I'm inclined to believe he ran away."

"How's that?" Sam was almost ready to forgive the general evilness of Wal-Mart for providing him the chance to talk to a chatty local who, apparently, kept up on local gossip.

"My husband's been called to their house at least a dozen times in the last two years for domestic violence. I imagine the boy – he was sixteen, I think – got sick of it and set off for Des Moines. Maybe even Chicago or St. Louis." The line move forward another few feet.

"Do the police think the two cases are connected at all?"

Mackenzie shook her head, "No. The girls disappeared from the track. The last time anyone admits to seeing the boy, he was loitering with friends on the Loop."

"Pardon?"

"Oh… Sorry, hon. The Loop is the local cruising route. Hasn't changed since my mother was in high school back in the sixties, and I don't think anything short of an act of God would change it now. It's pretty easy to spot on a Saturday night – just follow the carloads of bored teenagers."

At that moment, a miracle happened. Another checkout lane opened. Sam was almost completely convinced his previous belief that Wal-Marts were evil was unfounded when he realized that it just _had_ to be that malevolent presence trying to lull him into a false sense of security. Mackenzie, for all her small stature, did manage to beat three kids who were probably only _just_ legal drinking age to the newly opened lane. Sam's long legs ensured he stayed precisely behind her. "Let me give you a hand, Mackenzie."

She brushed a couple of hairs out of her face and smiled, "Thanks, Sam. I'd appreciate that."

Between the two of them, it didn't take long to unload her overloaded cart. "So, what do you do?" Sam asked.

"I teach third grade. How about you?"

"I'm a freelance writer," he answered, altering one of his and Dean's most well-used covers. "On vacation right now, though. My brother and I are taking a road trip – just seeing what we can."

Mackenzie sat the last item from the cart – a package of granola bars – on the conveyor belt and chuckled. "My sister's in the same line of work. I'm sure you'll eventually use your 'vacation' in your work. Kylie is always saying how she ends up finding inspiration in the strangest of places."

"I'm sure that's true," Sam wondered if there was any way to change the subject back to something with which the woman would be less familiar.

He needn't have worried; Mackenzie changed the subject all on her own. "Since the track is shut down this weekend, there really isn't all that much to do here in town. If you like swimming or fishing, though, Lake Red Rock is only a few miles from here. And Des Moines is only an hour away."

"That's okay. I'm sure my brother and I will be able to find something worthwhile," Sam grinned.

Mackenzie nodded and set to writing a check for her purchases, "I'm sure you will at that, Sam. Thanks for the help, and for the chat."

"Did you want help getting all that to your car?" Sam couldn't help but offer.

She looked at the mound of plastic bags now piled in her cart. "Thanks, but I think I've got it covered. Have a good trip."

"Thanks, Mackenzie. And thanks for telling me about the race track; I'll make sure to mention the lake to my brother."

"No problem, hon. Take care."

Sam set to unloading his own cart, grateful for the first time ever that he'd done their supply-run at a Wal-Mart. It wasn't until he'd finished loading the bags in the Impala that he'd forgotten to pick up a new tube of toothpaste. _Fuck it. I'll get it tomorrow. There's no way in hell I'm letting the Wal-Mart demon have another crack at me tonight!_

* * *

_12:45 am, July 20, 2007  
Room 13, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

"Dude, you leave anything at the store?" Dean smirked, catching a glimpse of the ocean of white plastic bags sitting in the back seat of the Impala.

Sam, who had managed to knock his head on the car door frame on getting out, rolled his eyes. "I got what we needed. What's up with the room switch? Thought we were in fourteen."

"We are," Dean grinned, bounding forward and grabbing his brother's shirt sleeve. "Come on, Sammy," he said, sounding like an excited kindergartener, "I made a new friend!"

Glaring a little at his brother's use of the hated childhood nickname, Sam reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged from the car, expecting to meet his brother's latest female conquest. "Are you high?" Sam asked as Dean pulled him into room thirteen.

"Nope," Dean replied. "Sam, this is Harry. Harry, my little," Harry snorted, "_younger_ – is that better? – brother, Sam."

Sam tore his gaze from his brother to the other occupant of the room. The man, who was standing near the room's small table, craned his head to look up at Dean's brother. "Bloody hell, does _everyone_ in this ruddy country have to be taller than me?"

"Dean?" Sam's voice managed to convey a host of questions in that one word, but the ones that came through most clearly were: Who is this guy? What the fuck? Are you stoned or drunk?

"Come on, Sam. Play nice. Turns out Harry's probably here for the same reason we are."

"Huh?"

Addressing Harry in a stage-whisper, Dean commented, "And _he's_ the one who went to college."

Harry smiled, "In that case, it'll probably catch up to him about this time tomorrow."

"You mean the disappearances, right?" Sam finally managed to get his brain to ignore the fact that Dean seemed to be genuinely fond of the guy.

Harry, still wearing a half-smirk, nodded. "Yeah, the disappearances. From what I've been able to find, I've ruled out the possibility of it being astral in nature. There just isn't an incorporeal entity out there that eats pets. However, I don't know what sort of creature it could be… Most of the creatures here seem to prefer hunting in secluded areas."

Comprehension finally dawned on Sam. In his defense, it _had_ been a really long day. "Oh, you're a Hunter, too. Sorry. I think my brain is still trying to recover from the attack of the Wal-Mart demon. Let's try again, okay?" He held out his right hand, "I'm Sam."

Harry laughed and shook Sam's hand, "Harry, and I know what you mean. Those places are probably the most dishonest evil I think I've ever come across."

"I did talk to one of the locals while I was trapped there tonight," Sam mentioned.

"Why don't you have a seat?" Harry offered. "As long as we're all here, we may as well work together – unless you two have a problem with that?"

"Not at all," Dean jumped in before Sam could reply. Sam, who was in the middle of lowering himself to sit on the room's only chair, paused and took a closer look at his brother. There was something…_off_ about Dean, but Sam wasn't sure what it could be.

Harry, who had been around the Weasley twins far too often, could easily read the mischief in Dean's expression and was pretty sure he knew what the other man was on about. When Sam had settled in the chair, Harry perched on the edge of the bed. "Well, that won't do," he said, palming his wand. Though he could do _some_ wandless spells, advanced conjurations weren't among them. With a twirl and a flick, a short, squat blue armchair appeared.

Sam's reaction was more than Dean was hoping for. He jumped in surprise, knocking his knees pretty hard on the bottom of the table and very nearly falling out of the chair. "Thanks, Harry," Dean said, his grin conveying congratulations on a well-played joke, and sat in the new addition to the room.

"Don't mention it," Harry gave a nonchalant little shrug. "So… You spoke with a local? What did they have to say?"

Sam didn't reply; he was too busy trying to figure out what just happened.

* * *

_9:30 am, July 20, 2007  
Knoxville Public Library  
Knoxville, Iowa_

After Dean and Harry dropped Sam off at the local library, Sam spent several minutes wondering about the other Hunter. The story he'd told the night before was beyond belief, but then again, a normal person wouldn't believe the story of Sam's life, so he supposed they were even on that count. No, it wasn't Harry's story that Sam was having trouble digesting, it was more the fact that his standoffish brother had managed to make friends with him. _Because, let's face it, if it doesn't have tits, Dean doesn't play nice… Especially since that thing with Gordon._ When he finally got around to going into the library, he had to stop again, this time in shock. _Holy hell. A small-town library that is not only well-lit and lacking in dust and must, but one with barcode readers, WI-FI access, _and_ a bank of brand-new computers? What the hell?_

"Can I help you, sweetie?" an elderly woman who all but had her picture in the encyclopedia next to the entry 'librarian' peered up at Sam through gold-rimmed glasses.

Sam smiled, "Yeah, actually. I was hoping to do some research on the history of the area. It just startled me for a moment that the library here isn't quite what I expected."

The librarian laughed, "We get that a lot from folks who've just moved to the area. The racetrack brings in a bushel of money for the town every year, and the library gets a portion of the profits off that. Local history, you said?" Sam nodded. "Well, we've got a voracious historical society who makes sure our books are well-stocked in that regard," she led him to a row of low bookshelves not too far from the row of computers near the door. "If you're looking for back issues of the paper, they're all stored on the computers."

"No microfiche?"

"Nope, we got rid of it two years ago."

Sam grinned, "I think I like this town already."

"If you need any more help, holler. I'm Mrs. Hardesty."

"Thanks, ma'am. I'll let you know if I need you," Sam waited until the librarian had returned to the check-out desk before folding his 6'4" frame onto a chair designed for someone much shorter than he. _It's a world of freckin' midgets, I swear._

By the time Dean found him at almost eleven-thirty, Sam had several pages of notes, but no real answers.

* * *

_9:30 am, July 20, 2007  
Knoxville Sprint-Car Hall of Fame and Museum  
Knoxville, Iowa_

"I can't believe your brother made me take a drink of holy water," Harry grumbled good-naturedly, getting out of the car after it pulled to a stop in front of Knoxville's biggest – and only – claim to fame; the Sprint-Car Hall of Fame and Museum. The building was larger than the town's size would have indicated, and Harry's extensive research the night before indicated that it housed viewing rooms for the racetrack, as well as the museum, ticket office, and security office of the track.

"_I_ can't believe you messed with my car without asking first," Dean retorted, his voice definitely on the pissed side of irritation.

"I told you, it's just a _glamour_ – a holographic projection surrounding your car. I'll finite it when we're done here. It's not like I turned it into a horse or something – I _could_ if I wanted to, you know." Harry crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently, "Are you coming with me or do I have to do this myself?"

"God, are _all _Brits as prissy as you?" Dean shut the door to the Impala, restraining the urge to slam the door. Even though his beloved car didn't look like her normal sleekly black and elegant self, he did know she was still _his_ car.

Harry chuckled and dropped his arms, "English? Yeah, probably. Welsh? Definitely more so, and Scot? Well, we _all_ know Scots are a bit rougher around the edges, even if they do take more pains to hide it than you Yanks."

"You still could have asked, first," Dean grumbled as he opened the trunk, his brain still having fits at the sight of his beautiful baby all decked out to look like a _station wagon_.

"You didn't have a problem when I transfigured your clothes into the uniform," Harry pointed out. "How was I to know that glamouring your car would be such a sore point?"

Dean grabbed a toolbox that contained, among other things, his newly repaired EMF. "Dude," he looked up at Harry and closed the trunk, "you _don't_ disrespect the ride. I can't believe you've been in the US this long and haven't figured that out before now."

"What can I say? I tend to stick pretty much to myself, mate, what with the whole price-on-my-head thing." Deciding it was time to drop the topic; Harry shrugged and headed into the museum.

A bored-looking woman in her mid-twenties with Midwestern-bottle-blonde hair and overly pink lips was sitting on a high stool inside the information booth. She looked up from filing her nails and Harry smiled broadly. Dean caught up to him just as he began to speak, and it took all of Dean's willpower not to do a double-take when the voice that spoke wasn't in a lilting, British accent, but one more suited to the southeastern coast of the US. The Carolinas, maybe, or Georgia. "Hello, darlin'. I'm Jim Evans, and this is D. We're from Authoriscan. Heard about the trouble with the system last weekend, and the higher-ups thought it'd be best for us to check it out, what with those kids goin' missin' an' all."

The information-booth-girl couldn't believe her luck. Not only had her bastard of a boss told her to call these very people that afternoon, but they seemed to have gotten the message without her having had to do a damn thing – _and_ they were two of the sexiest men she'd ever had the privilege to lay eyes on. She opened her mouth to say something and could only squeak. Dean plastered his best you-know-you-want-me smile on his face and leaned across the counter. The badge on her blouse said her name was Jenny. "So, Jenny, do you mind showing us to the security office, so we can get to _work_."

Though the taller man's voice didn't have an accent that screamed_ear-sex!_, Jenny's imagination immediately latched on to the innuendo D had packed into his last word and she shuddered a little. "I'm not supposed to leave the desk… But the office is just through that door. There won't be anyone in there until five. The door's unlocked."

"Thanks, Jenny," Dean's smile morphed into a smirk. _God, I'm good._

Once safely ensconced in the security room, Dean and Harry exchanged a look. "I think we just made her day," Harry said, his normal accent once again in place.

"Day? Hell, I think we made her _year_," Dean laughed.

"You might be right, mate. Let's see what we see, eh?" Harry started looking through the racks of VHS tapes lining one wall. Easily locating the tapes from the previous weekend, he handed them to Dean, who popped the top one, labeled 'Cameras 1-4' into one of the VCRs and hit play.

An hour later, and on the second-to-last tape, they finally found what they were looking for – at eight-ten in the evening, camera 23 stopped working just as a pair of little girls, age eight and twelve, came on the screen. Studying the tape frame-by-frame, neither Dean nor Harry could spot anything out of the ordinary. Flirting their way past Jenny once more, they headed out to the track itself, cutting across the dirt oval and worn grass infield to the portion of the stands the camera had shown – a short hallway area under the stands proper that led to the restrooms.

Looking up to where the camera was mounted to a support beam of the stands, Dean sighed. "I think we need a ladder."

Harry hadn't wasted any time after spotting the camera, and had already started climbing up the metal and concrete supports. "What was that?"

Dean shook his head, "Never mind, monkey-boy. I'm gonna check the area." He opened the toolbox and retrieved the EMF while Harry used a pocket multi-tool to unscrew the camera from the support beams. The pair worked in silence for a while, until the EMF spiked feebly while Dean was under some of the lowest seats of the stands. "Hey! I think I got something here," he called out.

Harry finished up his own scan of the camera and tucked his wand back into his hidden arm-holster. "Me, too," he shouted down to Dean. "Just lemme put the camera back." It was resecured to the support beam in record time, and Harry jumped down, landing lightly on his feet.

"Dude," Dean exclaimed. "What the hell – did you take gymnastics in school, or something?"

"No, I just played quidditch," Harry quipped. "What did you find?"

"Minor spike in the EMF just back here," Dean led the shorter man under the stands. "What's quidditch?"

"Major sport in the wizarding world – take the brutality of American football, remove the safety gear, add in three more balls – two of which are somewhat murderous – and two more goals, and put it all a hundred feet in the air on brooms and you just might come close to imagining it," Harry explained, retrieving his wand once more.

"Sounds fun," Dean commented. "What're you doing?"

"Checking for spell-residue. A simple confundus charm can short out a camera, and that's what happened up there," he jerked his chin in the direction of the faulty security cam. "Damn it… This happened almost a full week ago, right?"

Dean nodded, "Yeah… What's the problem?"

"Well, how long traces of a spell linger in an area is dependent on how strong of a spell was cast and the strength of the magic behind the caster – rather like how far a ball can be thrown depends both on how strong the person doing the throwing is and how much of that strength is used to throw it. Almost all spell traces dissipate within hours of being cast. The fact that I'm still picking up on this means one of two things – either we're dealing with a mage that could put Merlin to shame or this is a magical being."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that it's not human. Humankind only sees a magic user of this magnitude once every millennia or so." Dean followed Harry back out to where the toolbox lay on the ground under where the camera was mounted. "What I don't really understand is why here? Why now? And, of course, what the bloody hell _is_ it?"

Returning the EMF to the toolbox, Dean shook his head, "In answer to those, all I can say is – I don't know, does it really matter, and that's what we're going to find out."

"Let's see if your brother located any more information at the library, eh?"

* * *

_11:55 am, July 20, 2007  
Maggie's Diner  
Knoxville, Iowa_

The Winchester brothers and Harry sat in the corner booth of a bustling diner; their only neighbors a group of old men loudly discussing 'kids these days' and guzzling coffee. "So, did you find anything interesting at the library?" Harry asked, dousing his cheese-covered hash browns in Tabasco, something Sam wasn't sure even the bottomless pit that called himself Dean would have done, not even if money was at stake. Harry seemed to honestly enjoy it.

Dragging his attention from the nauseating and senseless culinary atrocity, Sam took a drink of his coffee. "Well, I didn't find much, locally. However, there were a string of similar disappearances in Des Moines – one or two people just up and disappearing without a trace every week for five solid weeks. All but one of the disappearances happened in places that weren't under camera surveillance; parks and the like. Like what happened with the Strady girls, the man that disappeared from in front of an ATM wasn't caught on tape because the camera shorted out. The week before the first disappearance in Des Moines, a camping couple disappeared from a place called Saylorville Reservoir. The week before that, a man from Lehigh disappeared. What I've been able to find is that every Saturday, for the past nine weeks, whatever this is takes someone. I also found that all the disappearances have been in or around places on the Des Moines River."

"Like those alien-mind-control slugs in 'The Puppet Masters'," Dean said around a mouthful of home fries, trying, but not quite achieving, a sage and knowledgeable tone.

Sam halted in his narrative as though hit by a beer wagon. "Dude,_what_?"

"Movie. Came out in… '94. Donald Sutherland, sci-fi and action. Spaceship lands in rural Iowa and the aliens traveled up the Des Moines River causing mayhem until the good guys won," Dean explained as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"How is it you can remember stuff like that, yet _I_ have to research just about every job we do?" Sam asked. He actually wanted to know the answer.

Dean smirked, "Just trying to make you feel useful. Besides, you type faster than me."

"Oh, so I'm useless, am I? Who was it who saved your sorry ass from that wendigo?"

"I'll have you know my ass is anything but sorry. Chicks happen to dig my ass."

"Unless they're the thirteen year-old daughter of a psychotic hillbilly," Sam couldn't resist. "Then they just want to stab your ass."

"Oh, sure, throw that in my face again! See if I exorcize you the _next_ time you get yourself possessed! Besides, it wasn't my ass, it was my leg. And I got her back, that little Wednesday-wannabe is probably _still_ locked in that closet."

Just as Sam opened his mouth to retort, Harry cleared his throat. "Not to interrupt this fascinating lesson in brotherly love, mates, but can we please return to the job at hand?"

"So what do you think we're looking for? Because I _know_ it isn't alien slugs," Sam tossed a glare in Dean's direction before turning to Harry.

"Don't knock the alien slugs, Sammy," Dean said, his voice somewhere between teasing and serious. "They were pretty cool at the time."

Sam rolled his eyes, "Still, I doubt _that's_ what we're dealing with."

Before the brothers could get into another stunning example as to why the occurrence of only children was on the rise, Harry derailed the argument. "I'd imagine it's a magical being; the fact that it only blasted the one camera – that it even recognized it as a threat – means this isn't just some random creature. If you're right about the link to the water, though, I don't have a clue as to what it could be. Kelpies and other water creatures aren't exactly up there in the smarts department, not to mention most of them can't leave the water. The only creatures I know of that are connected to water and have human-level intelligence are merfolk, and though they _can_ breathe air, they _can't_ leave the water."

"Merfolk?" Dean asked, suddenly more interested in the conversation than his burger. "As in Darryl Hannah, seashell-bikinis, and all that?"

Harry snorted, "Ah… Not quite. They're considerably more fishlike than humanlike. Think of them as an exceptionally ugly breed of humanoid shark." Dean grimaced, not liking the mental images the comment triggered.

"So... Whatever this is, it's likely amphibious," Sam mused, taking a sip of his soda.

"Or owns a boat," Dean pointed out. "We still haven't completely ruled out the possibility that it's someone like you, stick-boy."

"Not so," Harry ignored Dean's jibe – he was just glad he wasn't being called 'shrimp' or 'midget' or 'short-stuff' because that would have required a practical demonstration on just how ruthless his hand-to-hand training had been, and seriously, Dean was _no_ competition – and polished up the last of his hash browns before turning his attention to his toast. "I believe I told you that no wizard could cast a spell whose residue is still easily identifiable after a full week – especially since it was a bloody confundus charm and not a rite or warding or anything _designed_ to linger." He paused for a moment, thumbing through the jam packets that were in a wire holder next to a napkin dispenser. "Why is there never any marmalade?" he complained.

"Because only children and old people waste their side-order of pancakes on_toast_," Dean said, eyeing Harry like he'd grown a third nostril or something. "Seriously, dude… I mean, what the fuck? Is it just 'cause you're a Brit? 'Cause from where I'm sitting, it's like you're a whole other species."

"Plebian," Harry sniffed.

"I've been telling him that for years," Sam chuckled.

"Whatever. So… Back to the whatever-the-hell-it-is, do you think anyone's managed to see it?" Dean popped the last home fry into his mouth and washed it down with a large swallow of his iced tea. Harry scowled at the waste of good tea for the tenth time since Dean had ordered it.

"Possibly. We should see about talking to the families of the kids who disappeared… Maybe see if the police reports have anything to say on the matter," Sam drained the last of the coffee from his mug.

"If you two can talk with the families, I'll get the police reports," Harry offered.

"Sounds like a plan." Dean quickly finished off his burger and flagged their waitress for the check. "Do you want us to drop you off at the station, or do you want to go back to the hotel for your bike?"

"Don't worry about me – I can get back to the motel on my own," Harry replied, snagging their bill from the waitress before it hit the table and handing it back to her with his debit-card. "You two go on ahead. I'll meet you back at the motel this evening, yeah?"

"Yeah," Dean and Sam managed to reply simultaneously.

* * *

**A/N2:** Thanks for the reviews and have a great weekend! Next chapter up when Mom tells me to!

Reviews are definitely appreciated, but flames are used to roast marshmallows.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** Okay, I finally got some sleep and was convinced that today was Sunday until I looked at my computer clock. I don't normally sleep all that well, and last night was some of the best sleep I've gotten in ages, so yeah... I feel a little out of it. Anyways, I'm sure no one wants to hear about my sleeping habits, so here's chapter three. Enjoy!

* * *

**Once is Happenstance**

_1:15 pm, July 20, 2007  
Knoxville Police Department  
Knoxville, Iowa_

After apparating back to the Sleep-Right, Harry had changed out of his jeans and t-shirt and into the plain, black suit that he only wore once in a blue moon and ruthlessly charmed his hair into submission. The small leather case in the inner pocket of the jacket was the main reason he hadn't just re-transfigured his prior outfit. _I had to go back anyway – may as well do this properly_.

The local police station was housed in a building across the street from the library, and so Harry hadn't needed his motorcycle; he had simply apparated into the library, back among some archaic-looking language texts that had him longing for the times before his world had fallen apart. He couldn't help but smile bitterly at the thought that Hermione would definitely _not_ approve of apparating in a library.

Before the noise his sudden appearance could attract undue attention, Harry had straightened his shoulders and strode purposefully out the front door. It had taken a long time to learn that though sneaking around could be fun – not to mention informative – he was far less likely to be noticed if he looked like he knew what he was doing and where he was going, but once the lesson had sunk in, it stuck.

Flashing the contents of his little leather case to the desk sergeant produced a comically surprised expression before the man escorted him directly to the police chief's office. The name on the door read _Nathaniel Brook_.

Five minutes or so of pleasantries and two declined offers of coffee later, Chief Brook smiled benignly, laugh-lines deepening on his weather-worn face, and asked, "So, Agent Potter, what does the CIA want from a small-fry like me?"

"I'm merely letting you know I will be accessing your records today; possibly making copies of what I need. If you would be so kind as to show me to your filing room, I'll try to make my stay here as short and unobtrusive as possible." This wasn't the first – and Merlin knew, it wouldn't be the last – time Harry was grateful that the American magical government had not only granted him asylum, but did him one better in acknowledging both what he'd done to Voldemort as well as his high level of training. His ID wasn't fake; the Secretary of Magic had issued it to him personally, mere days after his run-in with that first bounty hunter in New York. She had told him that it was the least the US could do to help an international hero, and, among other reasons, it would put a halt to any legal repercussions of Harry having to protect himself, should it come down to a worst-case-scenario.

It was obvious that Chief Brook didn't much appreciate being told that Harry was going to be rummaging around in his filing room, but it was also apparent that the police chief knew that hindering a CIA agent was a good way to 'disappear'. Sometimes, urban legends actually managed to work _for_ Harry, and when they did, Harry couldn't help but be amazed.

* * *

_7:00 pm, July 20, 2007  
Pamida parking lot  
Knoxville, Iowa_

Sam and Dean were sitting on the hood of the Impala, in a large parking lot on the edge of town that belonged to an old department store that looked to have recently shut down. There were six or eight other cars parked in the same general area, focused in a haphazard manner around a sno-cone stand. Most of the other people were kids, high-schoolers to be precise, and Sam was relatively certain that this parking lot was on what Mackenzie had said was the local 'Loop'.

"Well, that was a complete waste of time," Dean complained, working his way through a ginormous mound of cherry sno-cone.

"Not necessarily," Sam's sno-cone was just as ginormous, but a sickly neon green color. Dean couldn't remember what flavor Sam had ordered, but he wasn't about to eat anything that particular shade of piss-green. "We know that both the Strady girls and the Thomas boy disappeared on race nights, even if we don't really know if anyone saw anything."

Unnoticed by either of the Winchesters, Harry approached the car. He'd finished up at the police station after only an hour or so and had spent much of the afternoon walking around and thinking. He'd spotted the distinctive shape of the Impala and headed in the Winchester's direction. He carried a plastic grocery bag from the Hy-Vee just a couple of blocks away, and had his suit jacket slung over his shoulder. "Sam, Dean," he greeted the Hunters, causing both to startle a little and turn in his direction. He smirked at Dean's knee-jerk reaction to drop his spoon and reach for a weapon, even though he didn't pull it out.

"Jesus, Harry! Make some noise next time!" Dean grabbed his spoon and returned to eating his sno-cone.

"Sorry," Harry laughed. "Didn't mean to frighten anyone. Did you find out anything from the families?" he asked, setting his jacket down on the roof of the car and reaching into his grocery bag for one of the cans of Monster energy drink he'd purchased and setting the rest with his jacket. He popped the tab and drained half the contents in one long pull.

"Not much," Sam replied. "Just confirming that the kids disappeared while the racetrack was holding races. What about you? Anything interesting in the police reports?"

Harry dug out his cigarette case and lit one. "Not much. Just that the last person to have seen Mr. Thomas was his best mate, kid by the name of Johnny Pierson. Report said the kid was a mess, going on about dragons, and that he was thrown in the drunk-tank for the night. I know it bloody well couldn't be a dragon – North America has no native species, and not even a wizard can successfully transport one internationally, not to mention that space under the stands at the track isn't nearly big enough, and then there's the whole confundus-residue… Besides, if it _had_ been a dragon, we would have more witnesses than we do – something that bloody big can't be hidden easily." Harry stopped talking when he noticed that the brothers were looking at him with identical expressions of incredulity. "What?"

"Dragons?" Sam said.

Harry shrugged, "Yeah. I don't know why you're so surprised." He snickered, took a drag off his smoke, and said, "Remind me to show you my photo album sometime."

Dean shook his head, dismissing the initial disbelief. _Sure, he could be pulling our leg, but I don't see why – besides, he seems to know what he's talking about_. "You said the kid's name is Johnny Pierson?"

Harry nodded, "Mm-hmm. Sixteen. Has a relatively short rap-sheet – breaking and entering, malicious mischief. Normal small-town boredom, if I'm any judge."

Suddenly, a new voice broke into the conversation, "You lookin' for Johnny?"

Three heads whipped around to stare at a girl standing a few feet from the black Impala. She was about an inch taller than Harry, though that was probably because of the thick soles on her army-surplus boots, and was wearing tight, olive-green jeans with an unzipped black hoodie that sported the logo for Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ album and a t-shirt featuring a concert poster for Rush. Her hair was short, spiky, and violently pink. Harry had to remind himself that there was no way the girl could be Tonks – Tonks had died more than ten years earlier. "Yeah, we are," Dean said. "Know where we can find him?"

The girl shrugged a little, "Maybe. What's it worth to ya?"

Dean was reaching for his wallet when Harry stepped forward, "What's your name, miss?"

"D.J." she replied.

"D.J., I'm Harry. Johnny's not in any trouble, we just wanted to ask him about what happened to Mark."

D.J. rolled her eyes, "Mark ran away. He'd been talking about it for months. Johnny's just upset he didn't go with him."

"Even so, we would still like to talk to him," Harry pressed, stepping a little closer to the girl.

There was a tension in the air that began to tingle along the back of Sam's neck. Even Dean could tell _something_ was going on, but he wasn't sure what. The girl wasn't paying any attention to anyone but Harry by this point – she wasn't even blinking.

As imperceptibly as the tension had built, it disappeared completely when the girl blinked, shook her head, and looked away from Harry. "Look, I don't know, okay? He's supposed to be camping out at the lake, but he wasn't there when I went to look for him." With that, she turned and all but ran from the parking lot.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he rolled his shoulders, releasing the lingering tension between his shoulder blades. Returning to his position beside the Impala he sighed, "I hate doing that."

"What did you do?" Sam asked.

Harry tossed his burned-down cigarette butt over his shoulder and rubbed lightly at his temples. "Always gives me a splitting headache."

"Yeah, we can see that," Dean pressed, "but what did you _do_?"

"A touch of legilimency… I took a look in her head. It's not easy to do, particularly on a muggle, not without causing damage."

"You can read minds." The not-question came from Sam.

"I_ can_, but don't. Not unless it's important, and unlike the man who taught me how, I don't barge in just to see what I can. I only 'read' what I'm looking for." Harry hissed a little, "You have any aspirin handy?"

Sam nodded and jumped off the hood of the Impala. Reaching through the open passenger-side window, he rummaged around in the glove box. "What did you find out?" he asked, handing a bottle of painkiller to Harry.

Harry fumbled with the cap for a moment before popping it open and shaking out four white tablets. He handed the bottle back to Sam and chewed the aspirin, washing his mouth out with the last of his energy drink before answering. "Mr. Pierson's staying at his older sister's apartment. 430 South Main Street, apartment C."

Dean grinned a little, "Dude, that must come in handy."

When Harry looked up from his hands and met Dean's gaze, Dean was a little taken aback by Harry's expression. Shadows and pain lingered in the shorter man's eyes, making their clear, emerald color look darker. Dean thought he understood how a person's eyes could be described as 'haunted' now. "I believe I just said I don't use it unless necessary," Harry sounded far, far older than he should have. Old, tired, and worn down.

Dean had known, from the story Harry had told him, that the short man had not had an easy life, but he hadn't really realized what that meant until just then. In that one, tired sentence, Dean understood. He would have recalled his flippant words, but that just wasn't something he _did_. Dean understood that though the guy standing in front of him was only twenty-six, he had seen far more of the bad side of life than Dean had, and considering Dean's twisted upbringing, wasn't _that_ a sobering thought? Dean didn't know the details, didn't need to know the details. He understood.

Ignoring the glare from Sam, Dean tossed Harry's jacket and bag of energy drinks into the back seat of the Impala. "Why don't we give you a lift back to the motel? Me and Sammy can go talk to the kid."

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, I'll go with you. The headache's starting to fade already." Harry got into the Impala before anyone could say any more.

Dean tossed his mostly-eaten sno-cone remains into a barrel not far from the sno-cone stand and got into the car. Sam followed suit, wondering just what had passed between Harry and his brother. He knew _something_ went unsaid, yet understood, but he couldn't figure out what.

* * *

_7:50 pm, July 20, 2007  
430 South Main Street, Apt. C  
Knoxville, Iowa_

When the Winchesters and Harry had arrived at the house which housed the apartment of Johnny Pierson's older sister, a stoned-looking kid in a pair of ragged jeans and a filthy t-shirt opened the door, said, "April's at work, morons," and slammed the door in their faces, the lock clicking back into place with an audible snap.

Sam knocked on the door again, "Johnny? Man, we're not here to talk to your sister. We wanted to talk to you."

Johnny's voice, a little muffled by the door, called out, "Did D.J. send you? 'Cause if she did, she was lyin'. I ain't got more than a quarter, guys, an' I ain't sellin' it. Get your green from someone else."

This time Harry knocked, "Mr. Pierson? We're not here for drugs. We just want to talk to you."

"Fuck off," came the reply.

"Oh, for the love of – get out of the way," Dean, exasperated, shoved Sam to one side and Harry to the other. "Johnny, open the damn door or I swear I'll kick the fucking thing off its hinges."

After a pause of several seconds, the lock snicked again, and the door opened. "What?"

"We wanted to talk to you about Mark."

"Why? You wanna tell me I'm nuts, too? Suggest rehab? Sorry, but I got enough of that from the cops. I don't need no more from you."

Harry rubbed tiredly at his face, "Look, Mr. Pierson, we don't think you're barmy. We're trying to find out what it is that took your mate, and if you can tell us what you saw it will help."

Maybe it was recognizing the accent that made the kid step aside with a subtle widening of his eyes, or maybe it was something else, but in a matter of moments, the three Hunters were led to a cluttered kitchen area and seated at a table. "Sorry about that, but did you guys want something to drink? I think we've got some soda in the fridge. April doesn't drink, so I can't offer ya a beer." The brothers were looking at each other, wondering just what had caused the kid's complete personality U-turn.

"No, thanks though," Sam answered for all of them.

Johnny sat at the remaining open chair and stared at Harry. "My dad used to play quodpot," he blurted.

"What the fuck?" Dean said, exchanging a confused expression with Sam. Sam shrugged.

Harry seemed to understand the reference, because he sprung to his feet, somewhat agitated. "Mr. Pierson, I don't care. What I want to know is what you saw the night your friend disappeared."

Johnny didn't seem to hear him. "Dad said you were the best flyer he'd ever read about. You could've played for England, but you disappeared. There were articles about you in the paper for years, about how you'd get spotted every now and again."

Harry lost his temper – if there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was simpering fans. He kicked the chair he so recently vacated. It clattered to the floor. "Mr. Pierson! Listen to me," he growled, "I. Don't. Care. About. Your. Father." Startled, Johnny stopped rambling. Harry sighed and picked up the chair from where it had tipped onto its side. "I'm going to go outside and have a cigarette before I strangle him," he muttered to Sam.

When the door to the apartment closed behind Harry, Johnny looked at the Winchester brothers, "How do you know Harry Potter?" His voice was awestruck and breathy.

"He's a coworker," Sam replied. "Can you tell us what you saw when Mark disappeared? It's important."

Dean allowed Sam to take over talking with the kid, and followed Harry outside. Harry was sitting on the porch railing, smoking. Dean leaned against the side of the house. "What was that about?" he asked.

"Fucking fame for something I don't even remember," Harry's reply was bitter. "I told you – I survived a curse no one ever has before. The attention I got for that was… astronomical. It isn't nearly so bad on this side of the pond, but every now and again I stumble across someone who knows the story. Kind of like how there are those people who just can't seem to get enough of the gossip about the Royal Family."

"I can't believe I'm going to say this, but… I think I have an idea how you feel."

Harry scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"No, really. It started out as a regular hunt – Sam and me were down in St. Louis. The whole thing got out of hand, and a shapeshifter took my form and used it to work himself onto the FBI's wanted-for-murder list. It didn't help matters when another shapeshifter decided to try its hand at a bank robbery in Milwaukee. Another job out-of-control and I got my face on national television. Ever since then, we've had to be careful."

"It's not exactly the same thing, you know," Harry replied.

Dean nodded, "Yeah. I know. Still, it's something."

Harry's expression relaxed a little, "That it is." He flicked his cigarette butt out into the street and headed back into the apartment, Dean right behind him.

Back in the apartment, Sam was finally getting somewhere with the kid. "…so I dared him to sneak into the track, the pits. See if he could steal Skip Jackson's lug-wrench or something. Skip Jackson's so totally the bomb, even if he is Australian. He'd just gone over the chain-link surrounding the parking lot when I saw something between the cars. I thought it was just my imagination, y'know? It was long and black and scaly… God, it was fuckin' _huge_. Then I realized it had to be one of those dragons Dad said he saw in the preserve in China, though how it got to Iowa, I can't guess. The fuckin' thing moved _fast_, and had Mark before I could do anything, and how I wish I could use a wand like Dad, but I can't…" On hearing Johnny's description of what he'd seen, Dean watched as Harry's face paled drastically. The kid was hyperventilating and Sam was trying to pat his arm in a consoling manner. It wasn't helping, though.

Harry crossed the room quickly. "What color was it, Johnny? You said black, right? Are you _sure_?"

Johnny focused on Harry and let out a shuddery breath. "Yeah… I'm pretty sure it was black. It was kinda dark in the lot, though, so it could've been dark blue or green."

"Shite," Harry whispered.

"You know what it is?" Sam asked.

"Maybe," Harry said, though his expression was distinctly worried. "Get him calmed down and meet me back at the motel. I've got to check something." With that, Harry spun in place and disappeared with a small crack of displaced air.

"Now, _that _is something that could come in handy," Dean whispered to Sam.

* * *

_8:35 pm, July 20, 2007  
Room 13, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

Harry let out a shaky breath. _So it's not a basilisk. That's good._ There were no reports of unexplained sudden deaths in any of the areas in which people had gone missing lately, no reports of unexplained catatonia, either. Without meaning to, however, his brain brought up the memory of how the basilisk in his second year had been able to track him though scent alone after its eyes had been gouged out by a phoenix. The same basilisk had traveled through the pipes of Hogwarts – a water connection – and had fried Colin's camera – just like the camera at the track. Harry's headache from earlier was back in force, and it felt like two halves of his mind wanted to wage war. "It _can't_ be a basilisk, Potter. There are no petrifactions, no instant-deaths."

_But the camera!_

"It could have shorted on its own. Besides, it's the power of a basilisk's gaze that does the work – not a bloody confundus charm."

_Still, the kid saw a giant snake. Just how many breeds of giant snake are there, hmm?_

"Still doesn't mean it's a basilisk."

A knock on his door interrupted the argument he was holding with himself. Sam and Dean stood there, waiting expectantly, until Dean said, "So…?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"What is it we're dealing with?"

Harry shook his head and stepped aside, letting the brothers into his room. He dug around in his saddlebag for his potions kit. "I don't know anything for sure, but I suspect it may be a basilisk."

Sam finished closing the door behind him before saying, "A basilisk? As in a great big lizard that kills things just by looking at them and lays waste to anything living it comes across?"

Harry located the shrunken wooden box and pulled it out of the saddlebag. Resizing it with his wand, he shook his head and rummaged through the orderly rows of bottles, jars, and vials. "No, I mean a basilisk, as in the king of serpents. A great honking snake that kills with a direct look and petrifies with an indirect one. A snake whose venom is so powerful it kills within a minute and can dissolve iron. A stupidly bred snake that can live hundreds of years that spiders flee from and that can be killed by the crowing of a rooster." Seizing a headache draught, he downed the contents and put the box away.

"Nice," Dean muttered. "Just fan-fucking-tastic. How do you know it's one of those?"

Harry closed his eyes in relief as the potion took effect, "I don't, that's the problem. I mean... it fits some of the evidence we have, but not all. I know a basilisk can destroy a camera, but it wouldn't leave traces of a confundus charm in doing so. There aren't any reports of unexplainable deaths or people suddenly turning into fleshy statues in any of the areas where folk have turned up missing. I suppose, if it _is_ a basilisk, it could be blind, but this is farmland. I don't think a basilisk would be able to survive long here, since a simple rooster-crow can kill the bloody things."

"I'm sensing some hostility here," Dean said, referring to Harry's clipped tone.

Harry shrugged, "I've dealt with a basilisk before."

"So I gathered. But you said it yourself; one of these things couldn't survive long in this region. So what else could it be?"

Harry shrugged again, "I have no idea."

Sam rolled his eyes, _Research. Why am I always the one who has to research?_ "Hey, Dean? I'm going to go grab the laptop."

Dean nodded to show he'd heard Sam and asked, "Could it be like that boa constrictor that got loose in Florida a few years ago?"

Harry chuckled; he'd nearly forgotten the incident that had dominated the national news three years earlier. "No, Dean, I don't think so."

"Well, we know it seems to want to stick reasonably close to the water, so our next step would be to check out that lake near here. Maybe someone's seen something."

Sam returned, the sticker-bedecked Dell in hand. Setting it down on the room's table, Sam turned it on. "I'm going to see if I can find out anything useful. Why don't you see if you can find us some supper?"

Dean nodded and left Sam in the company of Harry while he tracked down some cheap take-out. Really, his brother _was_ better at the whole research side of things than he was. _I just don't think in geek_, he smirked a little, recalling several incidents over the two years when Sammy'd been in college where their dad had lost his temper at Dean's inability to run an effective Google search.

* * *

_4:00 pm, July 21, 2007  
Lake Red Rock Marina  
Lake Red Rock, Iowa_

Sam scrubbed a hand across his face and yawned, leaning on the hood of the Impala. He and Harry had been up late the night before, working on their respective laptops. They had a list of nearly a dozen possible creatures – and after talking to far too many people, they hadn't managed to narrow that list down at all. Dean was currently flirting his way through a conversation with a girl in a bright blue bikini. Harry had disappeared into the forest that surrounded three-quarters of the lake moments after they'd arrived. Sam didn't know what Harry was after, but he hoped he had better luck than the Winchesters did in locating it.

"Headache?" Harry asked, sliding out from behind a couple of walnut trees, something small and drab, but still shiny, wrapped around his neck.

Sam didn't bother being surprised. He'd learned by now that Harry could be quiet as a ghost when the shorter man felt like it. Sam shook his head, "Not yet. Just tired. We haven't found a single thing. What about you?"

"I found us an eyewitness as to what's been hunting around here lately," Harry said, gently unwrapping the drab-shiny thing from around his neck.

Sam blinked, "Dude, you know that's a _snake_, right?"

Harry gave him an at-least-you're-not-blind-but-this-isn't-as-nuts-as-you-think look. "Yeah… Your point?"

"Even if the snake saw what we're looking for, how are we going to find out? Or are you going to do that mind-reading thing on it?"

Harry laughed, "First of all, legilimency doesn't work on animals. Their brains and how they remember things is too different from ours for it to make sense, so it would be an exercise in futility. Secondly, I already know she saw what we're Hunting; I just brought her back here in case there was anything you or Dean wanted to ask."

At that moment, Dean sauntered over, "I so got that chick's number." Then he spotted the small brown-and-greenish rat snake coiling around Harry's hand. "What's up with the snake?"

"Harry here seems to believe the snake knows what we're dealing with," Sam said.

"Okay," Dean shrugged. "So, stick-boy, what are we dealing with?"

Sam clenched his jaw. His brother's ability to just accept the weirdest shit and take stuff at face value was, at times, maddening. So was Harry's easy confidence and competence. _It's bad enough I have to deal with one Dean, but two? Somebody just shoot me now._

Dragging his attention back to Harry and Dean and the snake, he realized that Harry was talking to the snake. _Talking _to it, like he expected it to answer. Sam didn't recognize the language, but still! The idea was preposterous.

Harry fell silent and the snake bobbed its head. Sam groaned mentally,_Tell me that snake did _not_ just nod._ Harry spoke again and when he stopped, the snake uncurled from his hand and slithered onto the hood of the car. It reared up, like it was about to strike, but just jerked its head in the direction of the part of the forest Harry had recently emerged from. Harry said something else, and the snake curled up in the sun. Harry laughed and looked up at Dean. Dean had managed to wipe the astonished look off his face – he had assumed Harry would go all mind-meldy on the snake. "So, Dr. Doolittle. What's the verdict?"

Harry rolled his eyes, "I can _only_ talk to snakes, you know, so don't call me that. In any case, she's adamant we're dealing with a shadow-stalker."

"And what's a shadow-stalker?"

Harry shook his head, "I have no idea. Parseltongue doesn't translate into English all that well. Snakes had a habit of calling me 'hatchling' until I started shaving and 'day' translates directly into 'basking time'. I do know it isn't a basilisk, blind or otherwise."

Sam wanted to scream, really he did. "And just how can you talk to snakes? Snakes are biologically deaf."

Harry smirked at the tallest Winchester, "And that's why parseltongue is a _magical_ ability."

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean laid a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Come on, kiddo, you seem to be having some difficulty with this whole wand-waiving-wizard thing. I'd've thought you'd be more inclined to believe it – after all, aren't _you_ the one who also believes in God and angels and all that?"

"And you're _not_ having problems with it?"

Dean shrugged, "I think I told you before – I believe in what I can see. I've seen the things our man Harry here can do, therefore it's real. How come you have a problem with it?"

Sam sighed, _Maybe Dean has a point. _"It's just… This is weird, even for us. It's all a bit much to take in, you know? The idea that there's this whole sub-culture that we didn't know about…"

"And how it that any different from the other things we know are out there that normal people don't believe in, huh? C'm on, Sammy, believing in the impossible is what we _do_. After all, it's a little hard to kill something you don't believe in."

That managed to get a smile out of Sam. "Basically, you're saying I'm thinking too much and should stop it, right?"

Dean dropped his grasp on Sam's shoulder and grinned, "You said it, geek-boy, not me."

"Jerk," Sam retorted.

"Bitch."

* * *

**A/N2:** I'm not too happy with the scene with Johnny - I wanted to include how no matter where Harry goes, he's still the Boy-Who-Lived, but I don't think I wrote it all that well... Sigh. 

Reviews are definitely appreciated, but flames are used to roast marshmallows.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** Thanks for everyone who has read this story, and a great big thank you to all the reviews. There's just the epilogue of this tale left, and I'll be posting it tomorrow sometime... Not real sure what time, but with my life, that's not unusual. I'm a little insecure with the fight sequence, but it was as good as I could make it and not end up with serious angst and a part two focusing on a hospitalization-recovery thing - I don't have anything against those type of fics, but I, personally, don't do long, drawn-out hurt/comfort/angst stories all that well. I'm already writing part two of the story, which will take place a couple of months after this fic, but I don't know when I'll start posting on it. As to All at Once - I'm working on the next chapter for that one, too, which is why I don't know when part two of this tale or the next AaO installment will actually be posted.

* * *

**Once is Happenstance**

_6:00 pm, July 21, 2007  
Room 14, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

Dean had the contents of the hidden compartment in the Impala spread over his bed. He was cleaning the guns, sharpening knives, throwing out empty bottles that once held holy water and making sure those that remained had their lids on tight. Sam was sprawled out on the other bed, his nose buried in one of Harry's books – _Damn, that guy can sure pack a lot of shit into that one measly saddlebag_ – and Harry was returning his little snake friend to the forest.

"So… A naga, huh? That's a new one for us," Dean broke the silence.

"Mm-hmm," Sam flipped a page in the book, not looking up.

"Anything useful in that?" he asked, breaking down his semi-automatic and reaching for the bottle of gun oil.

"Mm-hmm," Sam still didn't look up.

Dean grinned. "So, I was thinking… You want to strip naked and stroll down main street?"

"Mm-hmm," was Sam's reply. Dean burst out laughing. Sam looked up from the book. "What?"

Dean shook his head and finished cleaning out the gun. "Nothing, Sam. What's the book have to say?"

Sam snapped the book shut and stretched, his neck popping with the movement. "We're screwed."

"How so?"

"Well, it's all written in that annoying would-give-spellcheck-a-meltdown middle ages verbiage, so it took some doing to filter out what it was trying to say."

"And just what does it tell us?" Dean slid the barrel of his gun back into place with a snick and a click. "Silver or regular?" he asked, indicating the two magazines of bullets within easy reach.

"Hollow-point – the book didn't say if silver had any effect on the damn things, but it did say its skin is 'skaild lyk unto a waryor's armour'."

Dean thought about that for a moment or two. "You think Harry's got nitro with him?"

"Dude,_what_?"

"I was just thinking… You know, like in _Jaws 2_? Roy Scheider's character loads a bunch of hollow-points with cyanide and caps them off with wax. I figured we could do the same, only make it a bit more –"

Sam interrupted his brother, "Dean, you watch _way_ too many movies. There's no way in hell I'm using a gun loaded with nitro-tipped bullets, _especially_ not if you were the one to fuck with them. Besides, these naga-things only have one physical weakness."

Dean sighed, "So no explosions?"

"No. No explosions."

"We are _so_ doing a simple salt-and-burn after this."

"Pyro."

"Yeah, so?" Dean grinned and turned his attention to their sniper-rifle. "Well? You gonna tell me how to kill this damn thing or just make jokes all day?"

Sam ruthlessly squashed the urge to strangle his brother. "Whatever. The book says that a naga is basically a gigantic snake with a human face, limited magical abilities, and a taste for 'innocents', coupled with the need to feed on said 'innocents' once every seven days – so it's probably going to try another attack tonight. It also says that the only way to kill the thing is to poison it with mongoose blood."

"Mongoose blood? You're sure?"

Sam nodded, "Yeah. Which begs the question, just where the hell do you get mongoose blood?"

"It ain't exactly something you can get at the local butcher, that's for sure."

The sound of Harry's Harley cut off their discussion. Sam opened the door to their room and let Harry in. Harry tossed his helmet on the bed that wasn't covered in weapons. "Well, Hessia's back home. What did Pliny have to say on our little problem?" he gestured to the archaic tome Sam had been reading.

"That it's going to hunt again tonight and the only way to kill this thing is mongoose blood," Dean replied, snapping the scope of the rifle back into place.

"Hmm… That might be potentially problematical," Harry said. "I don't carry a lot of potions ingredients with me, but I know I don't have that one. Dragon blood, yeah. Mongoose? Nope."

"So…" Sam was doing his best to adopt Dean's whole go-with-it attitude. "Any ideas? 'Cause, outside of breaking into a zoo, I just plain don't see how we're supposed to come up with mongoose blood at this time of night."

"It's a fairly common potions ingredient, but I don't want every witch and wizard in the US to know I'm here – which they would if I just ordered it. Do you have an objection to my borrowing your mobile to make a call or two?" Harry asked.

Handing Harry his cell, Sam asked, "How come you don't have one of your own?"

Harry shrugged, "It sorta landed at the bottom of a long flight of stairs last week. Haven't gotten around to replacing it yet." He took the phone and stepped outside, reaching for his wallet as he did so. He didn't close the door behind him, so Sam and Dean could hear his side of the call. "Hey, Leanne. It's Harry. No, this isn't my number, how observant of you. Hey, listen, I've got something of a situation here… No, no, nothing like Lucius-Fucking-Malfoy. No, it's a naga… I don't need backup. I already have some… Hunters…" Harry laughed at whatever the other person said. "I know, I know. Just my luck, right? Anyway… Okay… I'm in Knoxville… No, the other one, in Iowa… Okay, three hours?" He fell silent for several minutes before frowning, "No, Leanne. I told you – I don't want that. I prefer being able to pick my battles, you bloody _know_ that!" Some more silence before Harry sighed. "I truly hate you, you realize this, don't you? Okay, I'll check it out when we're done here… Sure thing, love. Thanks." He ended the call and ducked back into the Winchester's motel room.

"Who's 'Leanne'?" Dean asked, leering a little.

"Old friend of mine," Harry replied, tossing the phone back to Sam. "She's sending us a package, should be here in about three hours. With luck, it'll be the mongoose blood."

"'With luck'?" Sam asked.

Harry shrugged, "Well, she'll send that, but I hope that's all she sends. Last time I called her for something, she sent me what I asked, sure, but also an entire box of chocolate-chip biscuits."

"She sent you cookies?" Sam chuckled. Somehow, Harry didn't strike him as the cookie-type.

"Shut up," Harry glared a little at Sam before joining Dean in trying to make a plan for that night.

Two hours later, Harry was busy unpacking a cardboard box which had arrived – much to the astonishment of both Sam and Dean – by owl. The box contained a note, which Harry quickly read before sticking in his pocket, a mason jar full of thick blood, and a bag of double-stuffed Oreos. Silenced by the glare Harry threw at them, neither brother commented, though Dean did snag the bag with a gleeful, "Hey! Dinner!"

* * *

_11:50 pm, July 21, 2007  
Knoxville Speedway  
Knoxville, Iowa_

If there was one thing Harry hated – aside from the fact that he was hunted by the very people he'd fought to save – about his life, it was having to adhere to a _plan_. Planning was all well and good when you needed to make a run to the grocery store for some more salt or to restock the caffeine cache, but… well, von Moltke had said it best, 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.' He'd experienced it time and time and time again. Plans fall apart, that was their nature. Chaos rules supreme – end of story. Or, like Dean had said as they'd parked the Impala near the back of the racetrack, 'Monsters I get, ghosts I get, hell, I can even get demons, but people? People are just fucking crazy.' Harry supposed that same statement could also be applied to a giant snake with humanlike reasoning.

Readjusting the mongoose-blood-treated sword strapped to his hip, Harry glanced up at the roof of the museum, where he knew Dean was poised with the sniper-rifle. Harry did have to admit that Dean's fascination with movies had actually yielded a good idea. The sniper-rifle was now equipped with hollow-point bullets, their points filled with mongoose blood and tipped with little dribs of wax – and the look on Sam's face when Dean had mentioned nitro had been priceless. Harry hadn't agreed with the use of explosive and so had recommended loading the bullets with the blood instead, ignoring the triumphant look on Dean's face and the look on Sam's which had so clearly said, 'Damn you - I just told him that was a bad idea, and now you go encouraging him!'

Harry spared a moment to hope that the security guard in the office in the museum was okay – and mentally made a note to obliviate the man when they were done for the night. The surveillance room on the other hand, was beyond repair. The track was going to have to spring to replace the entire system. _Who knew an AK aimed at a bunch of computers would have quite that effect?_ Harry was just happy the smoke hadn't been enough to trip the fire alarm.

The two-way radio crackled in his ear – _Wal-Mart really does carry everything, don't they?_ "I've got movement down by the pits." Sam was in the highest part of the stands across from the museum, scanning the track and infield through a pair of night-vision binoculars.

Harry turned and strained his eyes in the darkness, looking for any sign of the naga. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he said in parseltongue. Though he had once needed to see a snake in order to speak the language, and hadn't known when he was speaking it when he did, that was no longer the case. He'd learned how to listen to himself, and could pull on the ability when he chose.

A sinuous slip of shadow, a black a little darker than its surroundings, slid out of the area designated for tire-changes and quick refuels. "What have we here? A tasty bit of Speaker? How delightful." The naga's voice was dark, deeper than the basilisk's had been, and layered with a poisoned-honey smoothness.

"Come a little closer, snake, and see for yourself." Harry knew baiting the creature wasn't the best way to go about things, but hey, he was _trying_ to stick to the _plan_.

It slid out of its hiding place, into the relative light of the track's infield. "Damn," the radio in Harry's ear crackled with Dean's voice. "That's one huge fucking snake."

Sam replied, "At least you don't have to see its ugly mug… Come to think of it, just look in a mirror sometime."

Harry restrained the urge to strangle the brothers. He'd save that for a time when he wasn't playing bait for a sixty-foot black snake that sported a face that could have been a dead ringer for the late Voldemort, had it glowing red eyes instead of liquid black ones.

"Yes," the naga hissed from about thirty feet from where Harry stood, "you_ are_ a little tasty one, aren't you, Speaker? To think, I've settled for feasting on innocents these last weeks when all along a Speaker was near by."

Harry's had dropped to the sword, "Somehow, snake, I don't think I'm as tasty as you'd like."

The naga laughed, the only human sound it had made so far. "You are amusing, Speaker."

Without warning, the naga lunged forward. Harry, who had been anticipating an attack of this nature, sidestepped the rushing snake. He drew the sword, but didn't have time to use it. The naga's tail curled around and hit him across his stomach, flinging him through the air to land, wheezing, a dozen yards from the snake. In his effort to reclaim the breath that had been knocked out of him, Harry didn't hear the _pa-twing_ sound of a silenced rifle shot. The naga did, however. The snake was fast, and before the bullet could find its mark, it was out of the line of fire. It reared up and scented the air with a long, forked tongue. "So… Not alone, Speaker." The naga glared up at where Dean was cocking the rifle for a second shot. Dean met its gaze through the scope of the rifle.

A warm fuzziness descended into Dean's brain. He dropped the rifle, stood and started walking to the stairs. _I want a donut. Maybe some coffee. Wonder if Sam wants some coffee?_ He pulled open the door to the stairs and made his way down them, not once thinking about the naga, nor of Harry.

Sam watched this through his pair of binoculars and groaned. He hit the button on his radio, "Dean, man, where the hell are you going?"

"Sam? Dude, that you? I was gonna get some coffee, did ya want some?"

Harry had just managed to convince his lungs to start working again when he heard Sam on the radio and realized that the naga must have confunded Dean. "Blast it all to hell. Fuck the plan," he sprung to his feet, steadfastly ignoring a hundred minor pains that act sent screaming into being. "Accio sword!" he cried, pulling his wand from its holster.

The naga's head whipped around, "Not so fast, Speaker!"

Refusing to meet the creature's black eyes, Harry caught the sword by the hilt as it sped towards him. The naga, unable to use its confundus power on Harry, shrieked and slithered forwards and hit Harry with its tail again. This time Harry kept his grip on his sword, only to have his wand go flying. He felt something in his wand arm snap when he landed and thought, _Better my arm than my wand_.

"No, I don't want coffee!" Sam was halfway down the stands, heading for the infield. "Dean, we're in the middle of a Hunt, for crying out loud!" He couldn't just let the naga eat a fellow Hunter, after all.

"A Hunt?"

"Yeah, a Hunt! Remember – a great big snake? Come on, Dean, snap out of it!"

Harry once again climbed to his feet. His right arm was definitely broken; there was no mistaking that particular brand of pain. The sword was feeling heavier than it should, too. Pushing away the nagging need to pass out, Harry let out a wordless cry and headed back into the mix.

In the half-light that filtered into the track from a surrounding town full of streetlights, Sam watched Harry get to his feet and charge the snake, his left hand holding the sword with the ruby-bedecked hilt out in front of him. Sam reached the chain-link that separated the lowest levels of the stands from the track and started climbing. He winced in sympathy the third time Harry met the creature's tail and was sent flying, but didn't stop his climbing.

Dean reached the landing for the second floor of the museum when the fuzziness in his head lifted. "Damn it! Fucking snake," he growled and ran back up the stairs to the roof.

"Dean? You okay?" Sam paused at the top of the fence to radio his brother.

"Yeah, Sammy. Fucking snake. It got me with its freaky mind-blast."

"I figured. Luckily it doesn't last long." Sam judged the distance to the ground and jumped from the top of the fence, rolling as he'd been trained to as he landed.

"Okay, now you're really starting to make me angry, Snake," Harry growled, climbing to his feet yet again. He was going to need some industrial-strength bruise salve when this was over. He ducked the naga's tail and managed to score a hit with the sword as it passed over his head, but the blade merely sparked when it hit the naga's scales.

"So sorry, little Speaker, but that toy isn't going to save you."

Harry knew that, he knew the naga's only 'soft-spot' was its head. He hoped that Dean had managed to pull out of the confundus by now, otherwise this was going to be a _really_ sucky night, though he supposed that if the thing swallowed him and he hung onto the sword, he could cut himself out from the inside. Unfortunately, he didn't know for sure if Dean had shook the confundus yet or not, the radio had taken the brunt of the third hit of the naga's tail and was now scattered across the infield.

The naga circled closer to its prey and laughed again – it hadn't had this much fun hunting in a long time. It didn't swing at the Speaker again, instead it wrapped its tail in a loose circle around the little man. "You are going to be such a filling meal, Speaker. Your power is quite formidable and will boost my own rather sublimely."

A moment too late, Harry realized what the naga had done, and then the tail closed around him. Pressure on his broken arm made him scream and drop the sword as unconsciousness claimed him.

At the sound of Harry's scream, Sam looked up. He was a quarter of the way across the infield, and the naga was rapidly making short work of their fellow Hunter. He sprinted just a little faster. "Dean, where are you with that gun?"

"Just got back on the roof, Sammy. Give me a minute! Jeez…" Dean rushed over the roof to where his rifle lay. He snatched it up and peered through the scope, bracing it against his shoulder. "Damn it, Sammy," he whispered, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Sam reached the dropped sword, not having to worry about the naga's tail, said tail being wrapped around Harry as it was.

The naga lifted Harry into the air, dislocating its jaw to swallow a meal well-won.

Dean cocked the rifle.

Sam had a 'Dean-movie-moment' and pulled his arm back to throw the sword.

A_ pa-twing_ sound echoed strangely in the empty track.

The ruby-hilted sword arched through the air.

Honestly, the naga never had a chance.

Harry hit the ground a moment before the giant snake collapsed, a bullet wound in the back of its head and the sword protruding from where its mouth had gaped open. Sam managed to spring forward and pull Harry away from the mass of collapsing snake before it could crush him.

"You all right, Sam?" came Dean's voice over the radio.

"Yeah, but Harry's beat to hell. He's breathing, but his pulse is awfully fast."

"Getting almost eaten by a giant snake'll do that to anyone," Dean replied, swinging the rifle onto his shoulder by the strap. "I'll be there in a minute." He was _so_ going to beat Sam's ass for not staying in the stands.

Harry groaned, his consciousness swimming its way up through a thick layer of comforting blankness to emerge in pain. His chest hurt, his back hurt, his head hurt, but the sharp thudding pain in his right arm was the most worrying. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up. "Whoa. Don't try to sit up yet." It took him a long moment to recognize the voice and recall what had happened.

"You get it?" he managed to ask through the blurry haze of pain.

Sam nodded, "Sure did. This begs the question, however, how much lighter fluid does it take to render a sixty-foot snake to ash?"

Harry wheezed out a coughing laugh, "Don't do that, mate. Think I broke a couple of ribs."

Dean arrived in time to hear Sam's comment and kneeled next to his brother. "You're lucky the damn thing didn't eat you."

Harry grimaced and tried to nod. The movement sent sparks of darkness shooting across his vision. "Thanks for making sure it didn't."

Dean shrugged, "All in a day's work."

Sam retrieved his cell from his jacket pocket. He toyed with it for a moment before sighing, "I don't suppose you have a clue as to what to do with it now that it's dead, do you? Because you really need to get to a hospital."

Harry shook his head and just before the spike of pain caused him to black out again, he managed to say, "No hospital – call Leanne."

* * *

_12:35 am, July 22, 2007  
Hy-Vee parking lot  
Knoxville, Iowa_

The parking lot for the local Hy-Vee was directly across the street from the Knoxville Speedway and was brightly lit with orange streetlights. During the daytime, a small barbecue vendor took up a corner of the large lot, and there were several picnic benches scattered across a twelve-slot chunk of the white-lined cement. Harry was stretched out on the tabletop of one of the benches, a tall, willowy man wearing something that looked an awful lot like a dress was feeding the injured wizard-cum-Hunter a series of potions interspersed with what seemed to be an excessive amount of wand-powered magic. Dean sat next to Sam on a nearby bench, across the table from Harry's friend, Leanne.

Leanne was older than Dean had expected. If asked, he would have pegged her age at roughly fifty or so. She had a motherly air around her, but was dressed in a dark business suit. "Thanks for calling me, boys. I knew I should have sent some backup for Harry, but he can be stubborn when it comes to things like that."

"It wasn't a problem," Dean insisted – yet again. "We had the situation pretty well in hand."

Leanne laughed, "So the stubborn is a Hunter-thing and not just a Harry-thing. This is good to know." She glanced over to see how Harry was doing and sobered. "You two managed to save the life of a very dear friend of mine tonight; for that alone, I'd be grateful, but you also managed to save an international hero, too, not to mention all the innocents you've stopped that thing from eating, and so I find myself in the position where mere gratitude isn't nearly enough."

"Merlin, Greg! Quit mother-henning me! I get enough of that from Leanne, I'm not about to put up with it from my mediwizard!" Harry's shout interrupted whatever Leanne had been about to tell the Winchesters next. Harry jumped to his feet, "See? All in one piece again, you quack. Now, lemme get back to work."

The man in the dress seemed to take offense and did the spinning-disappearing-thing Harry had done from Johnny's apartment. Harry pulled his tattered t-shirt back on and stalked over to where Leanne and the Winchesters sat. He stopped a respectful distance from Leanne and executed a perfect half-bow. "Agent Potter reporting for debriefing, ma'am."

Leanne smiled a little at the confused expressions on the brothers' faces and pulled a small, clear stone from her pocket. She tapped it with a wand she pulled from her sleeve. "Report, Potter."

"Incident involving a naga. Knoxville, Iowa. July the nineteenth through the twenty-first. Three confirmed civilian deaths: Mark Thomas, Julie Strady, Kyra Strady. All civilian deaths occurred prior to investigation. Naga destroyed with the help of Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester, muggle Hunters. Actions needed: disposal of the carcass, repair of the Knoxville Speedway's CCTV system, and obliviation of the Knoxville Sprint-Car Hall of Fame and Museum's security guard. Magical repercussions: Life-debt now owed from Agent Potter to the Winchester brothers. End of report."

Leanne tapped the clear stone again and put it and the wand back in their respective places. Sam leaned close to Dean and whispered, "Get the feeling that our new friend isn't merely a Hunter?" Dean nodded.

Leanne stood and sighed, stepping close to Harry. "Merlin, Harry! Must you do this to me?"

Harry grinned, "Do what, Leanne?"

"Scare me half to death, you doofus! You call me up and say you're going after a damn _naga_, refuse backup, and then get beat to within an inch of your life! I swear, you're going to be the death of me!" Though the words were harsh, both Sam and Dean could tell they were just the older woman's way of expressing her worry. Even if Harry hadn't realized it, the woman had adopted Harry as her own.

Apparently, Harry _did_ realize this fact, if his stepping forward and giving Leanne a hug was any indication. "I won't promise not to do it again, love, because we both know it'd be a load of bull, but I _am_ sorry I worry you so." He broke the hug and stepped back. "Though, to be fair, it is partially your fault, you know."

Leanne sighed and ran a hand through Harry's hair, "I know, I know. It's my own damn fault for helping you out when you first showed up in New York. I knew it was a bad idea to take you in then, and I still did it. Just like I still feed stray cats."

"I'm still your favorite stray, though."

Leanne laughed, "That you are, Harry."

"Come on, let me properly introduce you to the fellows who helped me out. I wasn't exactly in a position to do so when you arrived." Harry led the woman back to the picnic bench. "Sam, Dean, this is Leanne MacRucky, US Secretary of Magic. Leanne, meet Sam and Dean Winchester, two of the best damn Hunters I've had the pleasure of meeting."

"Is a Secretary of Magic anything like the Secretary of Defense?" Sam asked.

Leanne smiled, "Sort of. It is the highest political appointment for the magical world of the US, though my duties are somewhat different than a standard Cabinet member. To begin with, the only times a president even knows about my position is if he happens to also be a wizard – something that last happened right around the end of the Civil War. Secondly, I have to run the Department of Magic, which has been a part of the CIA since its inception during the years following World War Two – a lot of bad things happened in the magical world during WWII, and we were very nearly exposed to the muggle realm on numerous occasions."

Dean snorted, "Suddenly all those stories of how the CIA can make people disappear make a heck of a lot more sense."

"You don't know the half of it," she agreed cheerfully. "However, I do seem to have a problem, Mr. Winchester. I was hoping you might be able to help me with it."

Dean cocked an eyebrow, "And what might that be?"

"I said it earlier – you boys saved not only an international wizarding icon," Harry snorted, and Leanne elbowed him, "but a close friend. What can I do to repay you?"

For what was likely the first time in his life, Sam got to witness his older brother at a loss for words. Sam shook his head, pushed his bangs out of his eyes, and answered Leanne. "The shapeshifter."

"What shapeshifter?" Leanne asked.

"A shapeshifter stole my form in St. Louis a while back," Dean managed to catch on to his brother's train of thought. "Sucker managed to get me on the FBI's wanted-for-murder list before we could take it down. Ever since then, we've had to avoid places we might otherwise have gone without problems. You know, like the hospital."

"I can see how that would be inconvenient," Leanne replied. "Tell you what, if you can promise to stay off the radar for a couple of days, I'll make sure your little problem is taken care of."

Sam whooped into the night air, springing up from the table. Dean laughed at his brother. "It'd be nice to get that Henriksen dude off my back."

Leanne blinked, "You know the name of the agent assigned to your case?"

Dean nodded, "Hell yeah, I know him. Talked to him a couple of times, too."

"In that case, I'll make sure he forgets his assignment. This means you'll need to stay clear for… say a week. Can you do that?"

Dean shrugged, "Probably. It doesn't sound too hard, after all, and when that week's up, no more FBI?"

"I promise," Leanne smiled.

* * *

**A/N2:** Like I said in the first A/N - I'm not really happy with my fight-with-the-naga sequence. I hope it wasn't too much of a disappointment. Thanks for reading, and the epilogue will be up tomorrow! 

Reviews are definitely appreciated, but flames are used to roast marshmallows.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling; various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books; and Warner Bros., Inc. This story is also based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'Supernatural'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

**A/N:** This is the epilogue of 'Once is Happenstance'. Part two will be named 'Twice is Circumstance', so keep an eye out for it.

* * *

**Once is Happenstance**

_4:20 am, July 22, 2007  
Room 13, Sleep-Right Motel  
Knoxville, Iowa_

Harry was staring at the spotty beige ceiling above his rented bed, unable to sleep despite the lingering tiredness from the encounter with the naga. _I owe the Winchesters my life. A bloody life-debt. Just how the hell does one pay a life-debt?_ He rolled over and pounded his pillow. _It's not like I'm likely to see them again. Merlin, this bites._

Giving up on sleep, Harry got out of bed. Glancing at the bedside clock, he dug into his saddlebag and retrieved the remains of his cellular phone. The sim-card hadn't been harmed when the phone shattered after being dropped twenty stories. He pocketed the card, slipped on his boots, and grabbed his helmet. An hour later, he was back at the motel, his newly acquired cell phone charging, the sim-card changed out. _This is what, the ninth phone this year? Maybe I should just give in and get one in padded foam, like the ones I saw those construction workers using in Colorado._ Luckily, his sim-card fit most of the models of TracFones sold. After it had charged some, he called Leanne and thanked her for the help she'd given in getting the naga carcass disposed of and to let her know his phone was back in working order. She also managed to answer his most pressing question before telling him off for waking her after a long night.

Armed with the knowledge of the address he needed, he apparated to a dark alley in downtown Chicago. It had been a long time since he'd needed to talk to a Gringotts representative in person, but the wizarding bank hadn't changed all that much. It was a shock, the first time he'd gone to a Gringotts branch after arriving in the US, to realize that all Gringotts branches were built on the same floor plan, but he quickly got used to it. His business at the bank finished relatively quickly, he checked his watch and found that it was coming up on six in the morning. He stopped at a donut shop and purchased coffee and a box of Chicago's finest double-glazed before apparating back to the motel.

He kept the coffee under a warming charm until the thin walls of the motel told him that his neighbors were beginning to stir. Grabbing the donuts and the two large cups of coffee, he walked to room fourteen and kicked at the door in lieu of knocking. "Hey, mates! I got breakfast!"

A bleary-eyed Sam opened the door and seized one of the coffee cups. "Jesus, Harry, don't you sleep?"

"Not if I can help it," he replied, stepping into the room.

"Are those donuts I smell?" Dean's voice was a little muffled by his pillow.

"Yeah, they are. Straight from the best donut store in the greater Chicago area."

A mostly-asleep Dean stumbled out of bed and Harry handed him the other cup of coffee. "Dude… Coffee, too? Thanks."

Sam was still dressed in the track pants and t-shirt he used for pajamas, and Dean had apparently fallen asleep still in his jeans. Harry decided to let the brothers wake up a little before springing his thank-you gift on them. When they began trading quips and snarking, Harry figured they were awake enough to listen to him. "Hey, would you two stop bickering for a bit, please?"

"Whacha need?" Dean asked around a mouthful of donut.

"If you had a hundred dollars, and someone asked you for one dollar, would you begrudge that person the money?"

Dean shook his head, "No, but if that's your way of saying you need a loan, you're talking to the wrong people."

Harry chuckled, "No, I'm not asking for a loan. Just listen for a minute, yeah? Say you're walking down a busy street in the middle of a city and you get shoved into traffic and a bum manages to save your life, would you give the bum a dollar, even if he didn't ask for it?"

"Hell, if that happened, I'd take the guy out for a steak dinner."

Sam looked thoughtful, "What's this all about, Harry?"

"I'm just trying to get you two to see things from my perspective is all," he replied, reaching into his jacket's inner pocket and pulling out a parchment envelope. "I know you don't really understand it, but I owe you a life-debt. It's a tricky bit of magic – and yes, I know you two aren't mages, but the magic involved is older than my wand-stuff, more along the lines of salt than shrinking charms. It will stay there until I can repay in kind, but I still don't like the idea of being in anyone's debt."

"A point would be nice to have right about now," Dean interrupted.

"I'm getting to that." Harry handed Sam the parchment envelope. "Look, my father's family was a very old wizarding line, and well… Just take it. I don't really want it, and I never asked for it."

Confused, Sam ripped open the envelope and removed a parchment letter and two golden credit cards. One had his name on it, and the other – which he noticed had an identical number – had Dean's. Their real names. On something bearing a Visa logo. It was surreal. Then Sam's eyes read the parchment and it went from surreal to downright scary in a matter of moments. Unable to talk, he handed Dean the second card with the letter.

"I know nothing short of my saving your life in return will ever erase the life-debt, but this is a step in the right direction," Harry said. "I remember all those IDs and credit cards in Dean's wallet from the other night – sorry about invading the personal space, but I was trying to find out who you were – and last night when I was trying to figure out a way to repay you I realized that Hunting isn't exactly a paying job and it brought to mind all those cards with different names on them and I figured that this would be a good place to start and I hope you're not mad at me for it, but please take it anyway –"

All while Harry was babbling, Dean read the letter. His breath hitched a little at the line _Balance of Account_. "This number," Dean interrupted the babbling Harry was doing, "it's a typo, right?"

Harry looked over Dean's shoulder, "No. That's the right number. Why?"

Sam recalled the number on the parchment. "This isn't a joke, is it?"

Harry shook his head. "No. I owe you my life. I can't just ignore that."

"And your little story about the bum and a C-note? This is _one percent_ of your money, isn't it?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah… I'd've given you more, but my bank thought it would have been… how'd they call it? Can't remember the word, but they thought it would have been over the top."

Dean actually had to sit down when he realized that Harry didn't realize that the numbers he dealt with in money were so far above and beyond the Winchesters' experience that it was ludicrous. "I suppose we can burn those old cards, can't we?"

"It would probably be a good idea," Harry said, enjoying the fact that the brothers were going to accept his gift. "Now, your account is set up along the same lines as the accounts that get set up for squibs, so if you need to deal with taking a larger amount of cash out than you can get at an ATM, you'll need to talk to Gringotts' muggle partners – in the US, it's Wells Fargo."

Harry spent most of the morning helping Dean and Sam realize that it was really the least he could do – it was _only_ money, after all. When it came up on noon, however, Harry gave his cell number to them. "If you need anything – and I mean _anything_ – don't hesitate to give me a call."

"We will," Sam assured him.

After Harry had packed up his room and roared off on his motorcycle, Sam shook his head in amusement. "You know, Dean, if this is the kind of payback we get after a lifetime of bad luck, I'm almost happy we've had the lives we did."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"It makes me wonder, though…"

"What?"

"If he's got all that money, how come he lives the life of a Hunter?"

"Well, it's not like he has to work, now is it?" Dean was pretty sure he understood the why, though. It was the same reason he asked his next question, "So, where to next? I got a voicemail last night from Jo, she's having some problems with a zombie in Michigan."

Sam nodded, "Michigan it is, then." Sam and Dean set to packing up their own room. "You know, I hope we see Harry again sometime. I kinda liked him; he reminded me a lot of you."

Dean looked up from where he was stuffing a wad of dirty socks into his duffle and chuckled. "Funny – I thought he was more like you."

_Finite Incantatem_

* * *

**A/N2:** And that's the end of 'Once is Happenstance'. If part two of this story cooperates, it should begin to be posted in about a week. Thanks ever so much for everyone who has read this story, even if they didn't review, and thanks to everyone who has reviewed. You guys rock!

Reviews are definitely appreciated, but flames are used to roast marshmallows.


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